Loophole: Book Five in Sidetrack Series
by Rina K. Fenderson
Summary: Decisions shape a life, from the inane to the impossible. The people let into a life have just as profound an impact. Cal Leandros has made certain decisions, let certain people in, and laid happily in the bed that had been made, but what happens in a world when those decisions and people are taken away? What happens in a world where they never existed?
1. Chapter 1 - Caliban

**Disclaimer:** The usual disclaimer applies. I do not own any of Rob Thurman's characters nor the rights to the wonderful world she has created. I obtain no profit from this work.

**Author's Note:** My friends have convinced me that I have been overestimating the innocence of teenagers in this current generation and suggested I lower my rating to T. Please be aware the following contains some adult language, adult situations (nothing gratuitous), and violence. If you are just now seeing this work, please note this is the **fifth book in my Sidetrack series**. I strongly suggest reading the previous stories to avoid confusion. They are still marked under the rating M, as I am too lazy to change them. Any comments, concerns, and criticism are more than welcome. Please contact me at rina232 .

**LOOPHOLE**

**A Cal Leandros Novel**

**Book Five of the Sidetrack Series**

Decisions shape a life, from the inane to the impossible. The people let into a life have just as profound an impact. Cal Leandros has made certain decisions, let certain people in, and laid happily in the bed that had been made, but what happens in a world when those decisions and people are taken away? What happens in a world where they never existed?

**CHAPTER ONE**

**CAL**

I was not New York's finest. My mother named me after the misfortunate monster of Shakespeare's _Tempest_ for a reason and begrudgingly let me take on her last name for cover among the human flock. Caliban Leandros. I wore the name like a badge over the last few years. The preternatural _paien_ feared me almost as much as the nightmares my fraternal parentage garnered. Half Auphe Cal, man of attitude, a short temper, and explosive means of interrogation. With my full-blood human brother, we had saved the world on more than one occasion, but the humans didn't know and the paien didn't seem to care. I was still a monster, I was still 'not right', and I was still nothing to be trifled with.

I was also a gun-for-hire. It was about the only reason other paien associated with me. They were willing to lay their eyes upon this unclean thing only when they needed me to kill something in their way. It led my brother, Niko, and me into some interesting places in New York. And some interesting locations, for secret meetings so other paien didn't see the weaknesses of the one that was hiring us. But it wasn't often those meets took place in a chain restaurant and certainly not one as 'human' as Panera Bread.

Of course, I wasn't meeting with a werewolf, or Kappa, or even a vampire today. The sun was shining too brightly for them to crawl out of their darkly shrouded rocks. I was meeting a friend. A word I didn't use to lightly, since there were so few I could call such.

When I slipped through the front door of the overly-warm coffee and pastry establishment, I didn't have to glance around to weed her out from the masses of hipsters and business suits on break. She glowed brighter than the ovens in the back and her scent drifted crispy through the doughy fragrance of bread and the musk of too many humans packed in on a hot early autumn day.

Georgina King sat primly at one of the press-board tables. She held a paper cup of coffee between her amber-hued hands and met my eyes from across the room. She hadn't been watching the door for my arrival. She didn't have to. She knew the exact moment I would walk in and her eyes fixed on me a second before I opened the door. It was her gift. She was a seer, psychic if you will. Human, but far more than that in essence.

I weaved my way through a few tables, careful to keep the Glock tucked under my arm out of view for the sake of the lambs jabbering like annoying songbirds all around me. I had bigger weapons, more potent ones, but on the human side of town I didn't need them. Hell, I didn't need any man-made weapons. Niko taught me how to kill with my hands as aptly as he taught with blade or gun. He had to keep his little brother alive while the monsters chased after us and he did a damned fine job of it over my twenty six years of life.

It just became twenty six a few months ago. Another year keeping me above ground; sometimes I thought it would be better to celebrate his accomplishment of that that, instead of my birthday.

"Hey," I murmured as I eased into the hard chair across from her. George smelled like cinnamon today. The sweet honey perfume much more diluted with the reason for our meeting dampening her usual easy whimsy. Part of that was my fault.

When I first met her, not long after Nik and I settled down in New York to hide among the hustle and bustle, she was a beacon of light. The one good thing about this dirty city. She was just a teenager and her doe-brown eyes, despite seeing all the wrongs in the world through her gift, were not as jaded as they were when they forced a smile across the table today. She still wore a sundress of a cheerful yellow hue to match the weather and maybe what she wished she felt inside, but it no longer reached her lips.

All the death and horror she saw in those visions when she touched another's hand, and it was my losses that brought her down. It was a sweet sentiment and a guilty one.

"How are you?" she asked. It wasn't small talk. It wasn't a precursor, like asking how my job was going or talking about the weather. Georgina actually wanted to know. She wanted to know how I was coping with the fact that my lover was stolen from me five months ago and I had no means of getting her back with my usual tactics.

Humans weren't all oblivious lambs for paien slaughter. There was a group of them, a growing organization of power-hungry and desperate fools that knew about the preternatural and were determined to make those unlike them their bitch. Of course, I was only guessing that the Vigil started up in the US, maybe it was Russia…or Germany. That would be historically ironic, now wouldn't it?

Regardless, the Vigil had started out as the humans' attempt to protect themselves from monsters and beings several levels stronger, smarter, and older than them. As concepts went it wasn't irrational. And, from what I was told – not certain I believed it– many of the Vigil chapters didn't believe in taking that protection any further than monitoring the paien that were out of line and either disposing of them or quarantining them from the rest of the world. The Manhattan Chapter took it further. A continent's miles further.

They saw me, half-Auphe, and my lover, also half-Auphe but with a peri twist, and saw the potential to obtain a weapon or maybe an army of indentured soldiers that no one could touch and everything feared. They made Cassie…my lover, bear a child for that purpose. And another when I rightfully stole away the first.

She was half a race known as the greatest evil of the world and they managed to confine her in a cage, pregnant, and me helpless to get her out. Only she wasn't pregnant anymore. And that made it worse. Now the Vigil could not only threaten her life at any attempt I made to get to her –killing every one of them had been my original plan– but they could threaten the life of my youngest son. They could make another, no big deal. I knew they had my half-Auphe sperm locked up in a cooler somewhere and they were the bastards that made it possible for my barren lover to have kids in the first place. Killing a two-month-old wouldn't be a source of any guilt or sacrifice for them.

And they called me a monster.

I didn't answer George. My fury and depression had been as outwardly visible as my pale skin and shaggy dark hair for months. The scowl rarely subsided. Only Niko and my eldest, Dante, could erase it for small periods.

George twisted the coffee between her palms. There was no steam coming off of it anymore. She'd been sitting here for a while. I hadn't been more than five minutes late, which meant she had come here early to sort out a way to speak with me. The only reason for that was bad news.

"What now?"

She wet her lips, brushed a hand over her freckled cheek to free a red lock of hair from her lashes. "There is bad news, but…I'd like to give you something before we get into that."

I frowned. I preferred to hear what the Vigil decided to do that would be considered bad, before she tried to lull my temper, but I needed to let her lay out her practiced speech. This was hard on her too. Her fiancé was still in the Manhattan Chapter, for me and for Cassie. He was originally from Boston, a chapter that I'd been told was hardly as tyrannical-mad-scientist as this one. George and Josh gave up their home to help us. Josh was risking his life to siphon information out to me. Monitoring and manipulating other members to keep Cassie and my son safe. Constantly searching for a means to get half of my family out of the Vigil's grasp, all the while he was just as apart from George as I was from Cassie.

I waited. George pressed her hands to either side of her coffee. After a moment, she reached one palm up for me to take. I did. George was my first love and the first person to kiss me despite the beast inside. She changed my life when I was still a teen and she hadn't stopped changing it years later. Lastly, I trusted her and I trusted her not to read any of the dark and awful thoughts running through my head or in my future path with the touch of her hand to mine.

"They found another one of the sleepers. Transferred her to the Brooklyn Chapter. For review."

I sighed. "How many does Josh have left?"

"Only three. He can't recruit anymore. They'll make him too." Josh's superiors back in Boston already knew he was infiltrating the Manhattan Chapter to get it shut down for its unreported and unsanctioned experiments on paien. Boston didn't, however, know he was planning a jailbreak for my girlfriend. We all knew Boston's protection would only stretch so far. Manhattan probably already suspected him. They never let him see Cassie from the day they kidnapped her off the street. Sure they knew, but they kept him on for whatever reason.

"What does this mean?"

"They gave Charlotte a message, assuming she was in contact with you." George squeezed my hand, preparing to recite. "'Any further interruption with Castiella's care and they will begin the third phase of Nephilim without recourse'. Do you know what that means?"

I was surprised George didn't. "They'll impregnate her again."

"It's too soon," she gasped, pulling her hand back in reaction. "It's barely been two months since Connor was born. Even if she heals quickly, that is still too much for a woman's body to take."

"It's a threat. It isn't meant to be good for her, just productive for them," I growled and raked my hand over my face.

"And incorporating Project Charlemagne?"

I froze, my hand mid-way to resting back on the table. It was a strange sensation when blood flowed like fire while your skin felt as if a bag of ice was dumped over your head. "They said that?"

"They told Charlotte."

It took me more than a moment to swallow that. Impregnating Cassie again…I always knew that was possibility while she was held and caged and drugged by them, the fact that they would rush it was the threat. Even more than that now. Even worse than that. "Project Charlemagne is Grimm. They mean to use him to impregnate her. _That_ is the threat."

I doubted they would use frozen semen in that instance either. Not when they finally admitted to having my red-eyed arch nemesis voluntarily lounging about in their facilities down the hall. Just waiting for this opportunity, just waiting for the Vigil to let him loose in Cassie's cage. He wanted her as his queen. Wanted her to birth dozens more half-Auphe so he could take over the world, kill the current Auphe, and seat himself on a king's throne. "God damnit."

George reached over, took both my hands that were covering my face, and kissed my knuckles as she leaned over the table. "Josh won't let them. None of the sleepers will let that happen."

"This is the good news?" I asked.

"There is no good news," she whispered. "That was the bad. It seemed like you wanted that first."

"I need to get her out of there. Her and Connor."

"I know, we will." George let go of my fingers after giving them another comforting squeeze. She fished through the purse set beside her in a vacant chair and pulled out her cell phone. "This is what I wanted to give you."

She didn't hand over the phone, but instead thumbed away at the touch screen. My own cell buzzed in my jacket pocket after a second. I pulled it out with my hand holding the lapel shut. Humans were a little gun shy nowadays due to their own breed trying to kill each other in crazy ways, so I really needed to keep the Glock out of sight if I didn't want to add outrunning the cops on my list of things to do today.

George had sent me a video. Niko and I had upgraded our cell phones when it became too difficult to keep up with the information Salamandier –another informant desperately trying to find a way to stop the Vigil and save my family—was passing along. The former amphibian, alchemic mishap and current, slick-skinned, hacker was just too high-tech for our old burn phones. We kept them for job usage, but we'd both given in to the smart phone era for our main line of communication.

Georgina was out of her chair and circling around the table to my side. I watched her, curious and a little frightened to press the play button over a stilled image of half her fiancé's face.

"I suppose this is a bit of good news," she hummed. A little of her innate warm glow reached out to touch my constant gloom as she leaned over my shoulder. Her curls brushed against my crown and her scent of cinnamon and sunlight made me close my eyes. Georgina tapped her finger to the icon for me; I could sense the motion even if I didn't look.

My phone's volume was always on low, but even in the moderate din of idle chat around me, even with the sounds of the oven and the rumble of the air conditioner, nothing could stop the gleeful little giggle from reaching my ears. I could hear Josh's voice; not the usual gruff tone filled with distain and egotism –a tone we used to toss back and forth like teenagers in a schoolyard. It was a light tone touched with a musical cadence and a smile that no one had to see to hear. And at every playful prompt of his voice, that nasally little adorable trill followed.

"Cal, open your eyes," George pleaded. Her hand was on my shoulder now; she'd eased down into the seat next to me.

With a deep breath and a hard swallow I did as I was told.

It was my son…my little boy in Josh's arms. There was another filming –a woman by her voice. Josh looked haggard and tried, but his eyes still lit up with a smile that slowly mended its way across my own face. He was holding my son. He was there, protecting my boy. And holding up his plump little arm to wave to me.

"He's so chubby," I snickered.

"He's healthy," Georgina corrected and tapped my shoulder in form of a berating smack. He was wrapped up in a soft blue blanket, but his random arm movements kept knocking it off his shoulders. He seemed proud of his baby pudge. The video was only thirty seconds and stopped with his little round face framed on my screen. It was too early to determine who he looked like without comparing baby photos which weren't invented in Castiella's birth year.

I pressed the button to replay it. George rested her chin to my shoulder. "They moved him. Cassie attacked a scientist during a visit with Connor. None of the sleepers were there, but I'm sure it was deserved. They moved Connor as punishment, but they let Josh visit him. He goes as often as he can, feeds him formula, plays with him."

"His hair is white," I muttered softly. It was my first time seeing him outside of Cassie's body. George had smuggled other information to me. His height and weight, when he was born –there were complications, Cassie had bled, but the doctors there had stabilized her easily. The Vigil had some healers on their team too.

"Some children are born with light hair. It will darken." George drifted a hand over my scalp, smoothing the ponytail my hair was in. We might have looked like a couple to others, but there were no sexual undertones to her actions. She knew I was hurting, she knew this was killing me, she knew my fears. "His eyes are gray, Cal. Just like yours and Niko's and Dante's. He's your legacy, Cal. He's yours."

"Will I ever get them back?" I let the video stop again. Staring at that puffy faced, toothless smile. She knew what I was asking. I'd asked before. For her to look. For her to glean my future and see if I could scrape my family back together.

"You always do, Cal," she whispered. "You always will."

It was an assurance, not a fact. She wouldn't look and I couldn't force her too, no matter how desperate I became. It was an assurance, but one spoken with such confidence I could almost believe it, just as I believed she was right when she said he was mine. He could have been Grimm's. The bastard had taken Cassie at her weakest moment the same time she was up to her eyeballs in fertility drugs as the Vigil tried to get her pregnant with my sperm. Connor could have been his, might have been mine. I would never truly know unless they did a paternity test.

George's candor made me believe though. Connor was mine, Josh would keep him safe, and I would get him and my love back. Soon.

I spent most of my subway ride home watching the video on mute. Feeling the tension coil inside me, then melt away at that smile. I didn't cry often. My shitty life had hardened me up so that most of the downfalls, no matter how high or hard I dropped, were looked upon as inevitable or deserved. But when his little cheeks rounded over the bottoms of his gray eyes as he stared out from the screen…my lashes were a bit more than wet.

I cast my hand over my face and stuffed the phone in my pocket for the hike to the penthouse and up the twenty plus floors. Usually, if Nik wasn't with me, I took the elevator. He didn't appreciate the limitations a metal box gave him and all the bad things that could happen in one with no alternative exit available, but I didn't like walking up infinite flights of stairs a bit more. Today, I needed it. The time and exertion…it didn't help.

Slipping into the sprawling apartment, the weight had only pulled harder at my limbs. It was enough that I even had a little trouble pulling out my phone and shoving it in Niko's grip. He had sprung out of his chair at the kitchen table, abandoning his computer for the look on my face. I said nothing, ignored Promise and Dante as well, and hid in my room.

I could hear that laugh even through the closed door. They'd turned the volume back on, but I couldn't blame them. That sound was probably the most adorable thing I would ever hear in my life; mewling internet kittens and puppies baying 'I love you' couldn't compare to the sound of your child giggling. I wondered if Niko ever felt that way. A four year old forced to conduct the responsibilities of a child twice his age, on his toes staring into a cardboard box peering down at his little brother –because in my imagination Sophia wouldn't shell out for a crib, but maybe I got the bottom drawer of the dresser. I was probably a wriggling mass of wrinkles and red-faced. I probably whined and bawled all night and he probably held me in his just-out-of-the-toddler-stage arms, protecting from day one.

I hadn't gotten to hold Dante when he was born. I hadn't gotten to hold Connor…

My bedroom door whispered open without a knock, then shut softly. Almost as softly as the footsteps that approached my bed. I was sitting on the edge, back curved in surrender to gravity, arms braced to my knees. I knew one of them would interrupt my wallowing and I figured it would be my brother.

"Cal."

"I'm never going to get to see my kids grow up, am I? Between the Auphe and the Vigil…"

"Cal," Nik said with more command. He sat down beside me on the mattress. I rocked listlessly with the shift of weight. His hand reached over and took mine. His index finger tapped at the center of the back of my hand. "He's beautiful."

I huffed out a pained laugh, pulled my hands away, and pressed the heels of my palms into my eye sockets. It burned. My eyes, my nose, the back of my throat. All of it was tight and burning. Niko's hand traced over my back, his fingers tugging at my hair. Instead of the three inch hank sticking out beyond the hair tie, he tugged at the shorter re-growth at my nape. It had been shaved not long ago to dig out a Vigil chip that would have busted my brain open like a sledgehammer to a watermelon.

"I promise you, Cal. He will be in your arms before he speaks his first word."

I met his gaze –just like George has said, same as mine. Only his eyes were narrower and the rest of his features were more Rom than mine. He had a long Roman nose that earned him the nickname of Cyrano, that and his intelligence. His skin was an olive tan, scarred much less than mine. His jaw sharper and his forehead larger, but he still –somehow– looked enough like my brother that no one questioned it. Either that or people were just used to multiple baby daddies.

I knew those features better than I knew my own, mostly because I had a justified fear of mirrors. I knew the subtle twitches that indicated a smile, the solemn creases around his eyelids that showed grief and guilt, and the minute lift of a dark blond eyebrow that told me I was about to be schooled in something I couldn't care less for. Right then, there were more creases around those gray eyes than I'd seen in a long while. Something was wrong.

"What is it?" Like this day couldn't get worse.

"Just considering something," he told me. And he would explain further once that consideration became an idea or a plan. He didn't bother me with the beginning stages of anything, I would only exacerbate his thought process. "Salamadier is on the line."

By 'line' I assumed he meant his computer, considering he had been sitting in front of it when I trudged in. Niko also spoke those words with the same expression as before, which meant he wasn't announcing he had to get back to Skype-ing. Something was _still_ wrong.

Niko stood from my bed, back a little more ridged than usual. "He stumbled upon a project in the Vigil's files. One they are updating regularly." Which meant it was an active project.

"Nephilim?"

He tilted his head; the action had a touch a rage to it. "Nephilim is an ongoing project, but stage three isn't scheduled for another six months."

"They're threatening to bump that up if we intercede with more sleepers. They're also threatening to change the paternal donor."

Nik hummed. That was also laced with fury and a little vibrato of discomfort, but Nephilim obviously wasn't the project he was talking about.

"What's this new project about then?"

Big brother's mouth became a thin white line. "It's called Roman Ring. And from what Salamadier's saying…it's a giant, gate-driven, time machine."


	2. Chapter 2 - Caliban

**CHAPTER TWO**

**CALIBAN**

Like most nights, once a week at minimum, I found myself in Dante's room overcoming nightmares. Those were a big part of my life, nightmares were. When I was young they were about serial killer neighbors flaying my brother and Auphe –known then only as Grendels due to Niko's reading habits – climbing in through a window and sitting on my little chest sharpening their nails, one over another. Some were mundane enough to cast my drunken, swindling mother as the lead. Cracking a bottle over my head or chasing her monster-bred son with a shot gun like putting down rabid Old Yeller.

As I grew older they only became more gut-wrenchingly scary and harder to forget in waking moments. Niko carved into and strung up like a luau pig with a puck identical to Robin manning the charcoals. Cassie laid out beneath Grimm as he cut a child finally his from her belly, trusting more than the knife into her with each cut. The Auphe with their clawed, white hands ravaging a tiny dark-haired boy that wasn't me, but still had my blood in his veins. Suyolak, Janus, Ammut, Cherish, the Auphe; my nightmares had an infinite source of reference as recent as Dante being shot by the Vigil and splayed out –open wide – on an operating room table.

It was why I always ended up here in a sparsely decorated room that smelled of foxgloves and a hint of inky darkness. At least, here I could be assured that one of my sons was safe.

I lifted up one of the few framed pictures Dante had added to the room. There was one of Cassie and me lounging on the couch, my finger pointing with irritation at Niko, who stood in front of the television caught in a still-frame lecture. One of Dante's aunt and uncle in a moment of silent affection, barely touching but clearly not needing to in order to express their feelings. They were both taken by Robin, same with the one he snapped with an outstretched arm over Dante's shoulder. They were both smiling in that one, Robin's much more flamboyant, but Dante had a tell-tale twist to his bow-lipped mouth.

Goodfellow had bought Dante a digital cameral when he showed an interest. Cost more than I would have been willing to spend, but that was what surrogate uncles were for, weren't they? I just had to make sure the puck wasn't the one to teach him any gratuitous details about sex. Dante had figured out the birds and the bees all on his own, but I didn't want a puck giving him any ideas beyond that which would disturb me.

Dante took to the camera with rarely shown passion. By now, the boy had dozens of pictures on his computer. Snapshots of lives usually kept guarded and private. I had my assumptions as to why.

For a long while all Dante had of us were fragmented sensations. A two-year-old brain retained little for a boy a decade older to recall. Dante needed proof. Always needed proof. This was his family, in photo print, and he would never forget again.

The one I had in hand, the last on the dresser, was brand new. The frame cheap, but not from the dollar store as I would have done –Promise couldn't have ten cent plastics in her penthouse. The picture within…

It only took a day. Dante had printed an image from the video and set it align with the others on his dresser. His little brother's glowing smile, chubby cheeks, and bright eyes as a reminder. As proof. This was his brother.

Dante was watching me from his bed. The moment his bedroom door whisked against the carpet his eyes opened. He sat up slowly, though. Not like I did with a gun or a knife in hand and panic momentarily in my white-ringed gaze. I wasn't sure how he didn't wake like that; considering the exponentially longer time he'd spend in Tumulus. Maybe he just knew it was me, by pace or scent.

He'd understood my routine by now. He knew when to approach and when to give me space before he came to me. I always needed him there at some point, reminding me that somehow I wasn't a complete failure.

I put the frame back on his dresser, fingers just barely brushing the glass. Turning to look at him on the bed brought that tightness to the back of my throat. The one that felt like a tiny noose was wrapped around my esophagus.

No matter how tall he'd gotten, just a few inches shy of my height, which had settled an inch under six feet, he was still a kid. His body was filling out in the shoulders and chest, muscles were refining over his torso, arms and legs because of Niko's training. Those round gray eyes still held that innocence though. I didn't know how. After all the Auphe had done. Shown him just how bloodstained and unforgiving and venomous life could be. He still gazed at me with the wide-eyed steadiness of a child not half as corrupt as he should be and far too trusting of his disaster of a father.

The sheets around his legs were pooled and tangled. He was a restless sleeper like me. Last week, he hadn't woken up right away when I stole into his room. I watched him struggle through a nightmare with choking breath unable to scream, legs twitching with the instinct to run. When he roused it was because I placed my hand on his damp forehead. Like Nik did when I was young and more recently than I would've liked to admit.

Dante didn't speak then, just as he remained mute now, waiting for me to sit down on the bed next to him. He bent his leg out to tap my knee. It was as good as a hug.

"You're learning from the best brother in the world, Ace," I said. My voice seemed to echo like a bass amp turned up in an empty ballroom. "Don't let that go to waste, hm?"

"Of course not," he replied. "I will protect my little brother."

I felt a tiny smile attempt to work the muscles around my mouth, but they failed. I leaned over, dropped a kiss to his crown of short chocolate brown hair, and left the room.

Mine felt like a tomb. A very messy tomb, but barren beneath the mountains of dirty laundry. I dumped my body belly-down onto the knotted sheets and buried my face into my pillow.

I missed her scent so much.

"Cal?"

I'd head the ghost of someone entering my room. My nose was blocked by pillow fluff, but when I peered to my side I could see the practiced grace of my brother's form loom over my bed. I couldn't see in the dark, but I knew that silhouette and his voice.

"I'm alright," I grumbled into the pillow. He still sat on the edge of the mattress. A hand bracing to my back for a brief moment.

"Can we talk?"

"Do we have to?"

He stayed quiet for a moment. I wondered if he knew I'd been up and tortured tonight or if he just heard me during his own sleepless moments.

"I've been thinking about something for a while now."

"You're always thinking about something and it normally takes you a while." Too often that something was me and my sanity. Like tonight, no doubt.

"Cal, sit up."

Feeling like a gargoyle made of marble was plopped down on my shoulder blades, I slogged into a roll on the bed, then did as I was told. Hunched over and grumpy. "What were you thinking?"

Niko frowned. It was that same tight-lipped line as when he told me the Vigil was trying to make their very own time-traveling Delorian, using Auphe gates instead of a Flux Capacitor. It was a frightening possibility, more probable than any of us would have liked to admit. Darkling had possessed me for the Auphe with the same intention. Open a gate to the beginning of humanity and unmake Adam and Eve before they even know how to paste those fig leaves over their naughty bits.

A human helped stop 'me' with Niko and Robin, then that misguided uncle of George's blabbed the physics of it all to his idiot gang of former do-gooders in the Vigil. They called it Roman Ring, after some scientific dude or theory that I would never have the hope of comprehending even if I listened to more than two words of Niko's explanation. Salamadier even found blue prints in the top secret files. It was a dome. A huge, fucking dome made of metal and fielded with amplifiers.

"With this new project a lot of the Vigil's attention is drawn to multiple distractions. I think they might have threatened Cassie's station and removed Connor from her for that reason. They couldn't keep a close enough eye on everything, so they took the temptation away."

I rubbed my hand over my face, trying to wake up enough for this conversation that was already too long for this early in the morning hours. Only considered morning because it was passed midnight. "They moved Connor because Cassie kicked someone's deserving ass. Because they found another sleeper."

"Cal, I'm sure they know who all the sleepers are. I'm sure they know Josh is compromised, has been compromised from the moment he hopped into that transfer van." Niko paused to let that sink in, though I'd already had my suspicions. The fact that they let Josh stay at all among their ranks seemed more like an appeasement for the other chapters. Trying to assure them that they were doing nothing wrong and 'look we let one of your snitches in to prove it'.

"They also know that they shot Dante, not you," Niko went on. "Which means they need to keep cautious so the two of you don't gate all their hard work to Tumulus."

"Believe me, I've thought about it," I groused. I never would. Connor was in those buildings. If I gated it all to Tumulus, then Connor would be in Tumulus. We would be wrapping him and Dante up in a little bow and dropping them on the Auphes' doorstep. Connor would never see that hellish land, not while I lived.

"The Vigil leaves the sleepers to appease you. To make you think you have control." I lifted my eyebrow at Niko's implication that I didn't. "They control you, Cal. Every time they threaten Cassie or Connor, they are controlling you."

"Nik," I groaned. This wasn't something I remotely gave a shit about, especially when I could be attempting to sleep for another three hours. The Vigil could think whatever they damned well pleased. I was getting my lover and my son back and I would probably be stepping over several piles of bodies to do so.

"Josh has access to Connor."

My fingers parted over my eyes as they were covering my face again. That was his point, his plan, his reason for keeping me awake. I could read it all in that one simple sentence; concise and as loaded as the Glock under my pillow. It was effortless for me to follow Niko's train of thought by now. Usually, I was the one to come up with the reckless, risky plans. My state of health must have been pushing big brother to the limit as well.

"No," I said sternly. I shook my head for emphasis. "Nik, we'd lose Josh as an inside man. We would have no means to get to Cassie if we did that."

"We could get Connor back, Cal. They're separation is to our advantage."

"I can't leave Cassie in there!"

"We wouldn't. We would find another way."

"They would give her to Grimm, Nik!" I argued, rage rumbling in my chest like an Apache helicopter was cutting through my lungs.

Niko fell silent for a moment. His eyes searching mine, as if judging how far to push this fucked up idea. He wanted to use Josh to get Connor out. With the Vigil so distracted with the time machine, it was possible. Strike that, with a master thief best friend, a desperate father, and a ninja uncle we would get Connor out, but not without sacrifice. Josh would be made, probably taken out of the Vigil completely, maybe killed if he didn't run from them. The few sleepers we had left…

"She's strong, Cal. She's overcome that before."

"_That_?" I shouted, appalled. "That? Violent rape is just 'that' now?"

"Cal, she will bounce back. She can handle Grimm—"

I launched my fist at my brother's face. He caught it –prepared for it – and twisted it behind my back. My cheek was pressed to the wall –Niko had removed my headboard back when Cassie was still in my bed, when we used to dent the wall with it at night.

"Cal, I'm sorry." He didn't say it often. He regretted very little in his life, as his mantra. "She would want this."

"She'd want to be raped in a cage by that fucking bastard? Again? Cornered and drugged and scared."

"Cal."

I kicked back, catching Niko in the hip, my heel dug into his stomach. It wasn't a move he taught me to escape from this particular hold, but I always did better when I improvised. Niko grunted as a little air escaped, but he _let_ go of me of his own accord. "Little brother, please."

He blocked my fist swinging around at his jaw, then the under cut aiming for his gut again. I blocked his chop to my shoulder that would have knocked me out and kicked again. Niko rolled backward onto the floor, ducking the Ka-bar when I threw it and knocking it to the ground with a well-placed wrist to the passing handle.

"You were there, Nik. You were holding her in the park that day, Nik! You were holding her after he fucked her in front of us. Did she look liked she _wanted_ it?"

He stayed there, crouched on the carpet and looking at me with so much guilt one would have thought he'd shot me again. I stayed on the bed, chest heaving and fire not meant to scorch my brother steadfastly growing to inferno-level in my heart. I knew he didn't mean it that way. I knew exactly what he meant, but it killed me to even consider…

I swallowed back bile. Dropped down on my ass in the center of the bed.

"Cassie would want Connor with you. She'd want your son in your arms, not matter the cost."

Niko pulled himself up to the bed again. This time there was no subtle brotherly taps, nudges, or hair tugging. Niko abandoned that. And he hugged me. My nose pressed sideways against his shoulder, but it didn't matter. There were tears in my eyes again, they wouldn't form enough to do more than moisten my lashes, but they were unmistakable for my brother.

"I swear to you, little brother, our family will be whole again."

The plan involved fire. Fire usually would have made me gleeful about it, but I couldn't bring myself to care. Sal got us the blueprints for all four of the Vigil facilities in New York City, including the Brooklyn Chapter, which Josh had once told us was pretty much a front to make the Manhattan Chapter invisible. We had the blueprints, we knew where Connor was located, we had plenty of explosive surprises and several of us were damned good at sneaking around undetected to place them.

We had to wait for the next afternoon to realize our plan. We had to wait to contact George and through her Josh. They were the ones that were going in to collect my imprisoned bundle of joy. Niko suggested that risky maneuver, believing the Vigil would be fully concentrated on our firework display and their pet project. It was odd for him to place others in danger for our own gain, but that just went to show how desperately he wanted his nephew back. Sacrificing Cassie's virtue was just the beginning.

I followed through with the plan bitterly. Gating and slipping through shadows to plant the bombs that would distract. I wondered in my travels if Niko was meticulously hiding his C4 cupcakes in places of little traffic. He would have before. Attempted to make the casualty list as short as possible, but I wasn't so sure anymore. Goodfellow was with him, tag teaming with stealth while I went uni-bomber on my own and Promise and Dante took out to the Brooklyn Chapter, which was also the least guarded.

I wasn't until the first facility went up like a warehouse full of fireworks and landmines that I started feeling a little better. I gated to the next location, put out a tiny flame on my shoulder with a dismissive smack of my palm when I noticed it followed with me. Niko and Robin were standing in front of me, arms up to shield the sharp flash of light and heat that exploded from the second building. Their assignment blazed higher than even mine. I almost smiled. Big brother was pissed.

Walking away from the inferno would have felt utterly satisfying. Like an action hero strolling down the street he'd just saved with an empty clip and a badass grimace on his face. I would have certainly appreciated it if the paien came out in droves to applaud my heroism. Not in the cards though, we had to get away from the fire quickly.

The second facility had a large medical division. That alone would have plenty of combustible material to send building shrapnel outward onto the streets. And that didn't even account for any explosives or ammunition the guards had, fail-safe devices set to self-destruct, patent-pending new weaponry… the list was probably endless, so no casual badass strolling for us. The rendezvous spot was merely two blocks from the six story 'office building' in the financial district and the explosions were counting off more than we planted. Car alarms were going off as concrete and shattered glass rained down on the meter spaces out front. That fire was about to leap to the next building closer to us.

I grabbed a handful of Robin's tattered shirt and my brother's hand not still clenching his katana. I gated us to the alleyway a half a mile and a river from the third target. A homeless guy, riffling through the blue trash bin in search for rolls and lunchmeats the Subway tossed, startled with a grasp at our appearance. He gawked for all of five seconds then went about his rummaging, pretending we weren't there. Either he'd seen some crazy shit in his day or he though we were a figment of a detoxing mind.

I tore off my singed jacket and handed it to Goodfellow. His shirt would only call attention to us in this human populated area; apparently he ran into some trouble on the fourth floor and he would probably recount it in full painfully egotistic detail later. For now, the puck didn't even comment on the shoddy craftsmanship or the fabric quality of the offered garment, but he also kept on his own shirt as a meager buffer. I assessed the rest of our appearance with a quick scan.

Niko, in his black trench coat was untouched by the fire or whatever firefight happened behind door number two. Aside from a little ash in Robin's curly hair and a few soot smudges he was rubbing off his face with the back of his hand, the puck looked presentable too. My black tee shirt was unscathed and the equally black jeans just looked like I'd tried to distress them myself to feel better about buying them at Wal-Mart and not some high-end store. I shrugged off my exposed shoulder holster and tucked my Eagle into the back of my jeans. The shirt was long enough to hide the matte black metal but not the excessive bulge. We'd have to make this quick.

Niko and Robin flanked me closely as we emerged from the alley and started down the street. Across the river, there was another series of explosions thundering. People stopped on the sidewalks and in their cars like deer on a highway, trying to figure out where it was coming from and if it was coming for them. I already knew. I supposed it could be called a terrorist attack, but it wasn't against America or even the humans en mass.

Dante and Promise were taking out the east facility over in Brooklyn; using an unmarked to the public tunnel system so the vampire could participate before the sun had completely set. We'd known where Connor was, but it was best for the Vigil not to know about Salamandier's secret back door into their state-of-the-art system. Blowing up, the facility in west Manhattan and the Brooklyn Chapter was just for fun, sport, and distraction. My skin warmed at the rumble and boom. I hoped Dante killed the lot of 'em. I didn't care much to find out who was sick and who was crazy anymore.

"Cassie?" Niko asked. The sirens whizzing by and the traffic jamming from pointless rubbernecking allowed us to slip into the appointed restaurant unnoticed. We told the hostess our party was already seated and with Goodfellow's charming smile in place, she didn't question it.

I shook my head at Niko's question as we weaved toward the back. We knew where Cassie was too, but that was emphatically past tense. She was in the facility I was assigned and I followed her scent to an empty cell. They'd moved her before we even started. Niko didn't ask for more than the head motion and just patted me on the back to console.

The chosen restaurant was several steps above a sports bar. It was downright fancy for me, but Robin would consider demeaning for him to attend. Now he said nothing as he slipped into a seat shoved into the corner. Normally, Niko and I would prefer that post, but it was blocked by a shelf of plants on one side to give privacy to its patrons and Goodfellow obviously thought he was more nimble to hurdle it if need be. I sat next to him with my back to the plants and Niko on the other side of the puck. My brother shifted his chair closer to our friend, so he could keep a decent view of the restaurant. Years before I would have watched him smack Goodfellow's hand as it snuck over his thigh a couple of times, but Robin kept his hands to himself. Monogamy had changed the puck.

I checked my watch. Five minutes passed the appointed time.

There was no way this was going to work…no way in hell.

Internal Use Only


	3. Chapter 3 - Caliban

**CHAPTER THREE **

**CALIBAN**

When I was eleven, Niko sent me out to get some milk from the convenience store a half a mile from our trailer. I left the store with a bag Cheetos and a comic book with only fifteen cents change and I walked right by a woman getting mugged as I cracked open the back of processed cheese and puffed up corn. When I got home Niko was frantic. Word traveled fast when he had an old CB radio connected to the cops' frequency. He was guilt stricken. Checking me over like I had been the one whose wallet was stolen, cursed with a trip to a DMV for a new license. Even at eleven I had enough sense to let Darwin sort it out; Niko had no need to worry, but I finally understood how he'd felt that day.

I'd sent my son out there on a mission that, though doubtful, could lead to certain death. I did it without a second thought. I'd risked his life, George's, Promise's…I even felt a little guilt for tossing Josh into the line of fire.

They were ten minutes late now. We all knew there might be a little lag or delay, but that didn't help my nerves. I didn't realize I was rocking in my chair until Robin pressed his foot to the seat to keep it on the restaurant's shiny floor. "Keep it together, Cal. A squeaky wheel gets noticed much faster than one that sits in silence."

"Bite me," I growled.

George and Josh came into the back a moment later, both with the smiles of a couple greeting their dinner dates. George rushed up to me first, as I rose from the chair. With her energy so vibrant it made her skin glow, she wrapped her arms around me in a friendly hug. "Sorry, we're late. Something crazy is going on out there. I think there was a gas explosion."

She moved off to give Niko a brief hug, completely natural in her act of meeting friends for dinner. Behind her, Josh hoisted a well-used baby carrier over a nearby table. Without a word he set it down at my feet and patted my arm with a grin. "Here's the munchkin. Sorry we kept him for a little longer than expected."

"Thanks for taking care him," I muttered almost instinctually. I eased down into the chair as Josh and Nik pulled another table over to enlarge our seating capacity. I stared into the carrier, half expecting it to be empty, but the thick blanket plastered with happy little ducks was moving with jerky motions as if a tiny mouse was weaving throughout the folds. Or a tiny uncoordinated fist was pushing against the obstruction.

I bent over and pulled the duck blanket down with one finger. A round face shifted like a bobble head as soon as his gray eyes were free to look at more than the back of soft blue fabric. I'd stopped breathing, but didn't notice until Niko's hand squeezed my shoulder hard enough to kick up a gasp. He knelt down before me and the carrier, one hand on the plastic handle and one still stretched to my shoulder. His mouth twitched to a warm smile like I hadn't seen since he was leaned over Dante's crib. Dante was barely two at the time –mere weeks before the boy was stolen by the Auphe.

Nik tucked the duck blanket around the little baby inside the carrier, so much smaller than Dante had been. My brother lifted him up with a hand behind his bulbous head. "Support his head. He has some muscle development to hold it up, but not much."

"Is that normal?" I saw my hands shaking as I reached out to collect the bundle that was twitching more than wriggling.

"Very normal," Niko assured me. The weight to my hands was more substantial than I expected for such a tiny thing. He couldn't be more than twenty five inches long. I tucked his little body against my chest, hand still shaking slightly around the wisps of white hair – soft as rabbit's fur – under my hand.

"His head is so big…is that normal? Is it swollen?"

I heard George giggle lightly, it wasn't mocking, but I still felt a little more than sheepish, especially when Niko flicked my ear. "A baby's head is two thirds of his entire body at birth. It takes a little while for his body to catch up. Connor is a normal, healthy, baby boy, Cal."

Those huge gray eyes finally locked on me, mouth gaping like a fish out of water, only a whole lot cuter with pink little lips. I wanted to brush my fingers over those chubby little cheeks, but I was too scared to move. His hands were so tiny as they waved around in jerky movements. Those fingers were barely the length of one of my fingernails. "I feel like I'm going to break him."

"You never could," Niko assured me. That was a bald-faced lie, but it was appreciated.

George's chin jutted against my shoulder; she must have switched with Robin to get next to me. She grinned as she looked down at my boy, waving a finger for Conner to track. "He needs to be fed. We have some formula, but he wouldn't take the teat. I think he was too excited to see his daddy."

"I don't…"

Josh handed Georgina a bottle before I could finish my wary thought let alone my sentence. With her help, I positioned the warm bottle for Connor to take. She warned me not to tilt it too far for the air bubbles and Connor surprised us all with taking the nipple eagerly. I watched his eyes drift closed as he suckled. I was still trembling a little.

Niko relieved the little bit more tension wrought up my body when he flipped his cell phone around to show me a text message that claimed Dante and Promise were clear of danger and on their way to the restaurant. I just stared at it in marvel, slow to process everything that just happened.

We did it. Without any near-death experiences, we got my son back. Finally, a smile tugged at the corners of my mouth as I returned my attention to the baby. Whether I was the father or not –a concern that seemed more and more likely to tilt to my favor the longer I looked into his pale face– Castiella really made a beautiful child.

"Hey, little champ. I'm your dad," I whispered. The waitress came by our table, apologizing for making us wait so long; obviously no one figured out that we didn't have a reservation. She took drink orders, eager to please Robin when he asked for a bottle of their most expensive champagne. She even gave me a cute smile, when she glanced over to watch the little babe-magnet in my arms chug back the formula.

"How old is he?"

"Three months," I offered. It was a little off, a rounded up number, but who the hell cared if I was a week or two off? I didn't plan on having this waitress be a part of my son's life anyway. I had an amazing partner to help with that already; I just had to get her home.

"He's adorable." The waitress smiled in a way that made me believe she might have one of her own, and then she moved off to another table with her tablet in hand. In my arms, my perfect little boy started crying and my anxiety level skyrocketed.

"What do I do? What do I do?"

I could tell half the table was trying not to laugh at me, but at least my brother had my back. With a towel draped over his shoulder he hefted Connor out of my arms. He draped the boy so his lolling head was supported over that towel and he patted at Connor's back until he let off an impressive burp for a such a little mouth.

He was still crying, but that didn't stop Nik from passing him back to me. I balked even as my arms instinctively wrapped around the baby. I clutched him to my chest, my palm spread over his soft, round head as gently as if it were a live grenade with the pin half out. "Nik?"

The crying wasn't very shrill, just a shaky moan coming from his button nose, but a few of the customers were looking over at us and judging my inadequacies. I had no idea what to do and punching the people who were pissing me off didn't seem like the best impression to make at the moment.

Niko rubbed his hand over Connor's back, giving me a rueful smile. He'd be my safety net, but he refused to kid glove me. Connor was my baby; I had to figure some of it out on my own. Swallowing back some nervous bile in my throat, I started bouncing Connor. His tiny fist knocked against my chin. It felt like barely a tap.

His simpering softened to a coo, followed by another little burp. I slowed to a light rocking, partially rocking myself as I closed my eyes. I could feel his warmth, his weight, even his scent was slowly becoming familiar. It was like a switch inside. Like an animal identifying its offspring. Imprinting, was that what they called it? He smelled like his mother…so much like his mother.

I stroked his hair, smiling at the fact that it was like a tiny white toupee on a completely bald head. I nudged my nose to his cheek; hopefully his hair wouldn't continue growing in like that. Connor trilled in agreement, even trying to lift his head against my chest. He didn't get very far, but I enjoyed the sensation of him tucking that big globe against my shoulder.

"See?" Niko said in that rare 'I told you so' manner. He pushed off his knees to settle back into an empty chair. He did tell me so, though. He promised my son would be back in my arms before his first word and Niko delivered.

We stayed at the restaurant for a celebratory dinner. Before the appetizers were finished, the rest of our party arrived to join in. Just like us they appeared battle worn, but not enough to call attention. My eldest son made it back from the metaphoric convenience store without a scratch. There was a round of greetings again and several kisses to little Connor's forehead, before Dante grabbed him up and pretty much refused to let him go.

The plan dictated we stay off the streets for a couple of hours. The Vigil would assume we'd hole up somewhere more private or be on the move where they could track us. Staying in a moderately public place would be a curve ball. Eventually we would go home; a place that was probably pinged on a giant map on the wall of some Vigil dictator's office. We didn't care. None of us in the penthouse intended to move. Mayhem and monsters could find us there if they dared, but we knew the Vigil would steer clear.

Promise was high enough profile in the human world that they would have to answer to news broadcasts should they overtly attack such a charitable heiress and they already used the bomb threat excuse the last time. They're whole mission statement was to keep it all out of the human public eye; they had to be careful.

Goodfellow demanded we pretend to enjoy ourselves. Perform like a normal group of friends and family. Said it would make us invisible; this establishment would never pick us out of a Vigil line-up if we were 'normal'. The thing was…there wasn't much pretending.

Champagne flowed, glasses clinked, and laughter was had and come by genuinely. And I allowed myself the smile. For the moment, just enjoyed the warmth of the table and the stories being concocted. It wasn't like we could toss around tales of our fight with a huge metal golem or the showdown between a marginally good and an inherently evil healer.

George could share some memories about students and Niko even slipped in a few embarrassing ones about my childhood, but for the most part we were all trying our hand at Goodfellow's favorite pastime: story weaving. I applauded the puck for keeping his 'I was there' historical references to a minimum in consideration of our efforts to be human.

A couple hours turned into four, then we broke up the party before the staff noticed the obnoxious group that wouldn't leave until closing. A big tip would only draw attention as well so we left it at twenty percent with a few bucks extra.

Half the group departed at the front of the restaurant, because that's what normal friends did at the end of the night. Josh and George when to the apartment George had been renting in Soho thanks to her new teaching position a private high school. Robin slipped off to Ishiah's apartment to continue celebrating in a manner I purged from my mind at the mere glint of Goodfellow's suggestive grin. The rest of us piled into Promise's rental – a precaution in case her car was noticed by the Vigil – and headed back to Broadway.

After being passed around like new puppy, Connor was out like a light in his carrier. So the silence that greeted me when I walked into my bedroom sobered me up like a hammer dropping. A sledgehammer, one that came down and crushed the light out of a fucking rainbow. I gripped at the carrier tight enough that ridges dug into my fingers.

My bed was still unmade, but someone – probably Promise – had set up a crib next to it. The wood finish matched my bedroom furniture, but the little rabbits and squirrels dangling from the mobile seemed horribly out of place. I put Connor and his carrier on my bed and ran a hand over the crib railing. The sheets within were of various Marvel characters. Wolverine, Cyclops, Ironman, and the Hulk. That might have been Nik's suggestion. Same for the tiny onesee that declared in boldface across the front 'Down With Skynet'.

It was everything for Connor, a welcome home. He would never be wanting for material things with so many aunts and uncles to spoil him. I just wondered if I could ever give him his mother. Would I even get her back?

And, fuck, what would they do to her now?

That was answered by nightmares that night. Most of them featured Grimm. Grainy surveillance footage of Grimm pinning her trashing body to a rusty bed, biting into her flesh and violently raping her. A bird's eye view watching scientist tick marks on clipboards as the bae paraded in one after another to poison her with their…substandard taint. The worse was the one where she was drugged, so out of it that my name couldn't even form on her full lips. Grimm took his time. Touched her like I had, kissed her with a human-toothed smile and a hooded gaze. He told her she was his now.

I didn't wake up during any of those montages. Didn't scream or reach out to stir myself from the nauseating darkness. Connor saved me. With a low whine that turned into a needy cry, he rammed me right out of the dream world and I thanked him for it.

I stumbled over to his crib, breathing heavy and sweating as if I had a fever. I didn't let it distract. Even in my half-witted state I could smell that the formula had made its way out of his tiny system of intestines. Muscle memory allowed me to change him half asleep like I had Dante. Only Connor's crying didn't stop once he was clean and dry.

I picked him up, held him to my chest with his soft head cupped in my palm. My breath came hard through my nose. My eyes squeezed as tightly shut as his were.

Just a few months ago I was talking to him through his mother. I was feeling him push a fist against her belly as she complained about tiny kicks to her vagina. I couldn't wait to see him. As much as it terrified me, I wanted to see this life begin. And now he was in my arms, a small mass of pudge and bone over the softest skin I'd ever touched and that terror had only intensified.

"Come on, little champ," I whispered as I sat down on the edge of my bed. I rocked him as I had in the restaurant. "I'm here. Daddy's here. No more needles or poking or prodding. You're safe…I'm never letting you go, okay?"

Connor squealed a little louder, probably waking all the light sleepers in the penthouse.

"I know." I could feel the dampness creeping along the rims my eyes. When I opened them my vision was blurred. "I know…I know…" The rest wouldn't come out, but I felt it. I could translate that mournful sound. He missed his mom. He wanted his mother.

The feel of her warm breast that, to him, probably smelled of milk and gave him that amazing sensation of a sated full belly. If they let her nurse him at all. Her voice, because I knew she would sing him lullabies –she sang to Dante…he remembered the tune after years of unspoken turmoil. Her scent, earthy and comforting and irresistible.

My chest convulsed, but I controlled the sob that tried to escape. "It's okay. I promise."

My door whispered open. I rubbed at my eyes to hide evidence of my meltdown. Not that Niko would overlook the action or my shivers or the sweat that still shined on my neck and forehead.

There was no judgment. Big brother stood in front of me like a pillar to strengthen. He offered me a bottle, already warmed and, no doubt, already tested against a wrist. I took it and repositioned Connor to give him the bottle. Connor latched on excitedly and the cries stopped as if someone pressed mute. Until his noisy suckling started up.

"Just like his dad," Nik murmured as he dusted his fingertips over the baby's white hair. "Missing momma's breasts in the middle of the night."

I snorted out a laugh, congestion from my tears making it a bit gross. Nik didn't often make jokes about Cassie and my sexual relationship. Mostly because my girlfriend liked to tease him by divulging too much and putting me in awkward positions with him in view. I didn't much like hearing about or thinking about my brother and Promise either. Like parents, I preferred to believe they were too old for intimacy.

Niko's finger flicked at my forehead, catching the moisture above my eyebrow. "Whatever you're dreaming is far worse than what is happening."

"Normally I would agree with you considering how vivid my imagination is, but this time I'm not too sure. I _gave_ her to him, Nik."

He sat down next to me on the bed. "You didn't give her to Grimm. And the Vigil has to know how destructive that would be to their project."

"They said they would—"

"If you attempted to interfere. You didn't attempt you most certainly succeeded. You called their bluff."

"What if it wasn't a bluff?"

"Then you saved your son in exchange for another nightmare for her to dream. One that you will thoroughly chase away when we get Cassie back."

He motioned for me to hand Connor over and I obliged; holding your son while mentally eviscerating some tool for raping your lover couldn't be giving baby good vibes. Connor was satisfied with the jostling, only because the nipple of the bottle never left his grasp.

"Promise bought a diaper bin, you know." It wasn't a suggestion, but a threat. The same tone of voice he used when reminding me of the functions of a dishwashers or a laundry basket.

His long nose pointed at the diaper I'd tossed on my floor, which in my opinion was just one big laundry basket and occasional trash can. "It's sealed," I defended. "I mastered the art of diaper origami with Dante and his shit was a lot fouler."

"He was eating solid foods when we had him. –Pick that up and for the love of whatever you deem holy stop cursing in front of the baby."

I rolled my eyes and heaved off the bed to pluck up the dirty diaper and dump it into the plain white bin in the corner that I assumed was the diaper bin. "I'll stop cursing in front of babies when they're yours, okay?"

When I turned around, Niko was doing his best impression of stoicism. It didn't last long since Connor decided he'd had too much and spit up the excess in a foamy white drizzle onto his onesee. I tossed my brother a burp rag and let him take care of it, which he did without hesitation or declaration that I should be doing it.

"You've been keeping something from me for a while now," I commented. I noticed weeks ago, but I hadn't considered it much since I was usually wallowing in my own depression and violent rage. Nik didn't keep things from me often, mostly because whatever affected him would affect me. Still he had been keeping something from me, previously over shadowed by getting Connor back, and by his upturned eyes he didn't feel that even now was the time to tell me.

I lifted my eyebrows and crossed my arms over my chest. Niko ignored me and went to work stripping little Connor out of his vomit-stained clothes, tickling my son's sides to elicit a giggle. As evasion went, it wasn't very subtle.

"Nik."

"It's nothing that needs to be address now." He cast stern gray eyes up at me. "Honestly. We have enough to worry about at the moment."

"So you're going to add worrying about my brother and his secrets to the list?"

Niko scoffed lightly. "Even if I told you, you'd still worry."

I sighed and kicked some of my dirty jeans out of the way to try and find that bag of baby clothes we'd bought back when Connor was four months shy of seeing the world for the first time. "But if you don't tell me, I'm just going to think up wild scenarios of what it is." I found the gray plastic bag after another kick. Crouching down, I tugged another tiny tee shirt that snapped at the crotch. Connor usually kicked his legs out like a frog so I guessed those snaps didn't chafe much yet.

Nik had Connor in a sitting position. The boy couldn't keep his bobble head up for very long, but he was making the effort. I slipped the blue fabric over him, shimmying it a little to get his pudgy arms through. "So what is it? Is it cancer?"

"Cal…"

"Hey, lately everything gives you cancer. Tofu could give you cancer." I lifted Conner up to hold him to me. His head rocked against my shoulder; quiet, still, and ready for another siesta it seemed. Niko, on the other hand, had wrinkles in his brow. "Okay, you experimented with Goodfellow? Don't want Promise or Ish to find out? Oh, got it. You're finally confessing that Dante's actually yours."

Niko's dark blond eyebrows twisted in a vexing manner.

"What? The intelligence and learning curve would make so much more sense."

"Stop it."

I smirked, shifted on my feet to rock Connor to sleep in my arms. "Then tell me. Brothers; no secrets."

Niko took a deep hard breath through that Rom nose of his. "I hadn't intended to keep it a secret. And it wasn't planned…exactly."

"Promise is pregnant," I teased, unable to resist one more taunt. Only Niko didn't roll his eyes or scold, instead a minute smile tugged at his mouth. "Oh shit, Promise is pregnant?"

Niko's hands clasped in his lap. It wasn't often I could read so much on his face. Maybe because I'd felt a few of those emotions before he had. Excitement that his own legacy was beginning, awed in how it happened – we all knew the actions and nature that progressed to this point, but somehow that didn't erase that wonder. There was a fair amount of terror there too, I saw. My brother could slice down a menagerie of paien, including one gargantuan spider the size of a Buick, by himself in the winter snow with just a katana and fire in his eyes, but that did nothing to assure him of the kind of father he would be.

I knew the kind of father he would be. That terror, though I understood its origin, was completely unfounded.

"Wow," I muttered to myself. I'd seen it when he looked into Dante's crib before the Auphe made my boy a sullen teenager. I'd heard it from Niko's own lips when he said he and Promise were considering a family. Perhaps not seriously then, but without a doubt now. Niko was more than ready to have kids. To have something I always wanted him to have; a woman he loved and a child to hold.

"Who'da thunk it," I chuckled, tilting my head to rub my cheek against Connor's soft hair. "Did you? Back before, you know. When it was just you and me and occasionally our scamming whore of a mother? Back when you'd run home before it got dark so your little brother wasn't alone and when the Auphe were Grendels just peeking in on their investment? Did you ever plan for a family of your own? To have a normal life?"

Nik was silent and still for a moment as he rested his elbows to his knees. He watched me tuck Connor back under the blankets of his crib. "I suppose," he said finally. The usual tranquility was back in his voice, but that long practiced patience was going to be stretched even with his kid. Somehow I just knew he would have a little devil as troublesome as I was. Leandros' didn't get a break, but there also wasn't anything we couldn't deal with so far.

"I was always planning for the future. The moment we had enough money to leave Sophia. The moment you finished high school so we could make our lives less of a nightmare away from her. I was naïve. I never planned far past college."

"I did," I confessed. I knew his plan. College for him, graduation for me, then decent jobs in a decent town that maybe wouldn't mind a hunting rifle over the fireplace if the Grendels got too close. Because his dreams, his plotting, were for me. Trying to get me out, safe, and into a normal life. Only then would he have started to consider one for himself.

I knew even then that a normal life would have never suited me. So I dreamt one for him.

"I always imagined you with a blond though. Smart like you. Sometimes it was that granola hippy look with a brain that wasn't idled with drug remnants. Sometimes that sexy librarian look," I gave him a wink as I leaned against the crib railing. "Always a big rack though."

"And I tried so hard to keep those magazines from you."

"You'd meet in college," I went on, my chin to my folded arms. "She'd have a little bit of a wild side to get you loose and drag you to a party or two. But she'd really like those boring museums. Your first kiss would have been over studying, and you could talk philosophy for so many dull hours."

"And she loved my little brother?" Niko asked with that tender smile still creasing one corner of his mouth. "Spoiled you rotten."

"I wasn't there," I replied and snorted when Nik's mouth dipped into a frown. "Face it, Cyrano. You could never have a normal life with me around. I knew that at age five."

"Normal is overrated," Niko said and smoothly stood from the bed. He rested his hand on the top of my head as he passed. "And this is plenty good enough."

"Hey, I'm not done talking," I called before he walked to my door. His gray eyes, identical to mine, fixed on my face. It almost looked like he was challenging me to push the Cal-less existence scenario. That was far from my mind. Just a funny memory, because I liked our version of normal a shitload better than a picket fence and a Chihuahua with a rhinestone collar.

"Nik, you raised me. I may not be perfect, but with what you had to work with…you were the best father in the world."

That smile returned a fraction, he nodded his 'I love you too', then he shut the door behind him.


	4. Chapter 4 - Caliban

**CHAPTER FOUR**

**CALIBAN**

Something else woke me up that night, or maybe it wasn't night…the cracks between the blinds lit up a dusky blue. The light wasn't what woke me even if it pulsed like early morning lightening. I felt it in my gut. The same way I'd felt Cassie briefly die when we were connected by her Claim on me. The same way I'd felt all those Auphe lives blinking out of existence a world away after the nuke touched down in Tumulus. The sensation was different. Violent. Like someone hitting the base of my skull with a rifle butt, then injecting my brain with Icy Hot.

I tumbled off the bed before I even registered consciousness. My bare knees scrapped against a jean zipper from the piles of clothes on my floor and my gun was already aimed at the dark corners of my room.

That was a gate. One massive, fucking gate tearing violently through a massive, fucking space.

"Connor," I whispered through morning-voice gravel and clamored over his crib. The little champ slept on, unaffected. I let out a few calming breaths as I turned around to see my affected son standing in my doorway.

His eyes were wild and he gripped the frame of the threshold. "Dad?"

"I don't know," I answered. "Connor's safe. Stay close."

Dante shook his head to deflect my assumption that he was just as clueless as me. "Outside."

Niko and Promise filed into my bedroom at the rush of movement between my crash from bed to crib and Dante's banging open my bedroom door. They were both still in their own sleepwear; Promise pulled her silk robe around her tightly as I yanked up the cord for the blinds as if she knew something would be there.

The beautiful view that Promise's financial and marital decisions had bought us wasn't what we expected. It wasn't just the usual morning cityscape with lights of early rush hour scattering throughout the street and colorful neon still shining in a slowly brightening sky. There was something there and I was left trying to grasp what it was exactly.

Over the airspace around Ward's Island I could see a dome of light, a net that looked knitted together with electricity. Hexagonal lines sparked vivid blue even against the brightness of a clear morning sky. In the negative space of each polygon a gate blossomed. One by one those rips in space ate away the electricity; used the power as a conduit to bleed the pieces together into a half globe of pulsing gray.

I doubted it was the wastewater treatment plant and if it was they were cooking more than shit over there. And the fumes opened a gate so extensive that it swirled like obsidian tar and cream. It felt it shut. It swelled as if it had breath, then imploded. Or sucked inward to whatever building it came from. I felt it shut almost like the stretch and flop of a lion sated after it'd just devoured its young.

"What the hell was that?" I whispered. Though I doubted anyone could answer. I glanced behind me, when I was sure the gate had closed. By the disquieted look on Nik's face and the way Promise had tightened her robe around her body almost twice over, they saw it just as clearly as Dante and I; even if they didn't get the whole cerebral effect.

"That woke you and Dante," Niko observed, which meant it hadn't woken the whole house, just the Auphe-bred side. Ergo huge gate. I nodded to assure his similar train of thought was accurate. Niko swallowed hard and peered out the window over my shoulder; his lover was keeping safe distance from the light as muted as it was, but refused to leave the room.

"Roman Ring," Nik whispered. "Shit, they rushed it because of us. They thought a full scale attack was coming and pushed this through." He looked at me, almost panicked. "Did it work?"

"How should I know?" Gate open, gate closed. I could give that much information, and granted this one was a much larger scale, but that didn't make it any easier to see where it went.

Niko abandoned the window rushing out of my room and guiding Promise backward with him. He let her go just outside of my doorway, which made it seem he just wanted her away from the morning light incase it fluctuated. I doubted it would, whatever had caused that pulse was probably drained for a good while.

Dante had already scooped up the still passed out Connor so I motioned for us to follow my brother. In the living space, Dante had left his laptop on the kitchen table. It was on, which left Niko no waiting time to get synced up with a Skype program. My brother did have to shove a light mocha-skinned púca out of the chair though.

I glared at the sixth body that should not have been in my house so early in the morning, especially not wearing my son's shirt. "Rio, what did I tell you about sleepovers?"

"I thought I could chance you in a better mood now that the little bundle was here," Riordyn countered. Dante had brought Connor over to the púca, who was making grabbing hands at the sleepy boy. Dante didn't relinquish him to his friend…boyfriend…the annoying púca certainly was spending a whole lot of time over here for one not getting laid. And he wasn't, I asked and Dante wouldn't lie to me. Of course…those were my son's boxers too.

Riordyn played with Connor's little feet, distracting Dante as well from the rather stressful situation. It was what he had been doing consistently for these passed few months; distracting Dante, keeping him sane where his father couldn't. It was the only reason I hadn't slammed the door in his face every time he came over. I did twice, but not _every_ time.

"When did you get here?"

"Three hours ago," Riordyn replied calmly. Too calmly, I was going to have to strike a little fear in his heart later, but for now –mega-gate.

Nik had a direct link ringing to Salamandier's number. During Rio and my conversation, he was whispering the mantra every man whispered when making that one call before the jail cell closed. Pick up, pick up. Considering that the messed up science project lived in front of his six monitors if he didn't pick up, pick up some bad shit was going down worldwide.

Sal came through, greeting my brother distractedly with his yellow-ringed black eyes trained on several other screens. "Hey, Niko…how's it look on your end? Like Fourth of July? That's your holiday, right? It's hard to keep track sometimes."

"Salamandier, what happened? You said months!"

I watched the amphibian's bald, black head bob in a nod, but the spots of gold that dotted over his skull looked a sickly pale. If he could blanch, I betted he would have. His background sound track wasn't the usual easy jazz, but tinny sounds of an audio playback…one where a lot of panicked voices screamed and gunfire reported.

"Yes, well," Sal murmured. His attention was trained on whatever videos were playing on the other monitors in front of him. I could see his skinny arms twitching underneath a loose sweater as he fielded the images with the point and click method. His gecko-wide eyes tracked all six monitors it seemed; I swore they even moved interdependently a few times.

"Seems they stepped it up to today," the alchemic mishap said. His lipless mouth pulled back and he made a hissing sound through blunt teeth. The same way a guy would cringe when he watched his best friend get decked by some lunk in a bar fight. "It isn't pretty. The sonic waves are chaotic, the electromagnetic pulses were conducting in an unpredictable pattern—"

"Did it work, Salamandier," Niko demanded, griping the laptop like he wished shaking it would shake our tech-friend by proxy.

"Oh, I could never answer that. The only way to answer that is for the subject to return and report."

"Subject?" Niko clipped out. "As in singular? You said they had a team set up to monitor Grimm! To control him as he needs to be controlled! To drag him back on a leash!"

Sal's yellow eyes flickered over to our screen for a moment to give an awkward look that I assumed was supposed to be baleful. "Oh, he won't be returning."

My eyebrows shot up and I glanced over at Niko; that didn't seem to be a horrid concept as long as that meant he was dead and not rewriting history.

"So it didn't work?" Niko asked. Probably hoping for Grimm-scattered atoms as much as I was.

Salamandier's focus was off-screen again. The panicked audio had softened on his end so he either put it on mute or was checking something else. "It worked in the manner that the subject has been transported, but in what condition or where are variables unknown. I can say with certainty that the subject is stuck there…at least until they can get some live bodies in the Ring to operate the gateway."

"What do you mean?"

"He killed everyone," I explained for my brother. "Probably killed his escort team first."

"Yep," Sal replied. He peered at a screen to his left. "First ones, you got it. Though it seems he still has that collar on him. Safe to say the subject is stranded. I don't even know if the gateway can be reestablished after it was closed. The subject might have to find another means of interspatial…oh…oh no."

He trailed off and frantically worked his mouse and keyboard. I didn't like it when his eyes bulged out of his head like that.

"Sal," I growled. "What's going on?"

"I'm so sorry, Caliban. I was still rewinding when you called. I only saw the end of the movie, not the beginning, not the middle. This is not good news. Well, I suppose it might be if the Vigil actually managed to create a means to travel the natural—"

"Sal!"

"He took Castiella…with him." With that he swept his hand over the lens and an image took the place of our chat screen. It was a clear overhead view of the epi-center of a room. Three men in black fatigues and body armor were dragging Cassie away from the light that shown down. She was drugged, barely on her own two feet. While Grimm was amiably strolling down the opposite aisle, four more armed me surrounding him. His eyes were on her the whole time.

"Seems she was the original desired subject. She denied them and they moved on to subject two," Sal's voice intoned over the silent surveillance feed. "But they didn't take her out of the Ring. Not out of sight from Grimm…in the chaos he managed to get to her. And then they're both gone. I'm sorry, Cal…Dante…none of their records assigned a name to the subject. I didn't have any connection between Cassie and the Roman Ring."

As he spoke we watched it happen. The machines started up; created a net of visible electricity arcing between pillars that encircled the center. The camera vibrated from some sort of outside audio tremor we couldn't hear. Cassie was locked away behind the glass walls of an observation deck. Grimm's head never tilted away from watching her.

He opened a gate behind him and the pillars sucked it in like a vacuum to a quarter. It spread around them. I'd only seen the circlet pattern when Cassie had produced it; years ago when she saved me from her crazed uncles out for blood.

Grimm didn't wait for it to close around him. He grabbed the team leader next to him, killed him by snapping his neck, used his body as a shield and his weapon as a means to murder the rest of his escort team. He gated behind that paltry glass and slaughtered those inside so gleefully the glass was opaque red by the time he was done. Then he stepped out of the room through the door like a pedestrian. A pedestrian with a MP5 that mowed down scientists like a homicidal psychotic in a clock tower.

Cassie was drug one handed behind him and he tossed her into the center of the room. I watched her body tumble like a porcelain doll toppling from its shelf. Her limbs looked even more emaciated than before, there was still an IV tube taped to the back of her hand. Her hair cascaded in blond-kissed waves around her like a lamenting stage actor in crumpled form under a spotlight. The blood of the others would have pooled around her if not for the slats in the grated floors.

All this happened before the amplified gate even completed the circuit. Once it had, the power surrounding shorted out the camera. Through pixilated glitches, I could see him hoist Cassie up around the small of her back. She was so sedated that her upper body arched over his arm like a dancer, only her arms were limp and her fingers tapped against the grates as he dragged.

Then they were gone and the camera cut out to black. I stared at the screen in hopes they would pop back into existence. Like it never happened.

"That's it," Salamandier's voice cut in again. The black image slid off to the side and the pitch-skinned mutant returned with a sheepish expression. "The clean up crew is running around like ants in a destroyed hill, they're calling for the Bravo team, which I assume are the second string scientists involved in this project—"

"Can you get the blueprints of this place, Sal?" I interrupted.

His sliver of a nose wrinkled. "Now's the time for me to get everything from these bastards. The enemy just walked out their front door with the family jewels. They're not watching the back door. I'm already—"

"Do you have them?" I snapped, fist slamming to the kitchen table.

"Well, yeah."

"Give them to me."

"Caliba—"

"Now!"

Another second of hesitation, then a few clicks and drags on his side had the blueprints for a facility fifty feet underground just a stone's throw away from the water treatment plant encompassed the screen. That half of the subterranean building was hidden under the expanse of Ward's Park, a green carpet over a metallic secret. I stared at the levels, the corridors, the rooms cluster on the north end, the round auditorium that was the Roman Ring on the southern side.

I closed my eyes, felt Niko's hand graze my shirt to grasp it, but he was too late. When I opened my eyes again, my feet dropped down on the meaty frame of a dead Vigil asshole. Better than the grate on my bare feet.

All movement stopped the moment I appeared. I liked that. I bared my teeth in a smile I hoped expressed outwardly the imaginative deaths I created for each and every one of them. Several guns aimed at me. Inside this dome there were only grunts. No white coats.

"Seems I'm late for the party."

"Caliban Leandros," a big guy in a Kevlar vest greeted. He stepped forward, guiding one of his minion's submachine guns to the grated ground. Not that it would have helped much; shooting down would probably just have bullets ricocheting violently off the metal and picking off the guys around him like they had in the video. Grimm had killed most of them, but there were a few taken out by their own weapons. In a different situation I might have laughed at the comedy of death.

Big Shot approached me with his hands up. It wasn't so much surrender as it was a half-hearted attempt to keep me calm. "We are currently assessing the situation here. I assure you this doesn't involve you."

I tilted my head to the side. It was very difficult, resisting the urge to murder the shit out of this schmuck. I compromised and pummeled his face instead, gating him twice to avoid the rain of bullets sure to follow my attack. I held up Big Shot in front of me –after banging him against the metal pillars and floor. Lifted him high so his broad chest and shoulders would take in most of the bullets. I was impressed when the Calvary ceased firing before any of those shots sunk into their superior. I dropped his heavy and unconscious form to the ground. In nothing, but flannel pants and a tank I didn't have a firearm to answer theirs with, but I didn't really need one to have them pissing themselves upon seeing me step on the back of their commander.

"Next?"

Another idiot stepped forward, only one hand up for him. "Sergeant Matthews," he introduced. "There has been enough bloodshed today."

"What did you do?" I snapped. "I know about Roman Ring. What did you do?"

"We don't know yet. As Major Balline mentioned, we are here to assess the situation on a basis of threat. Until the Bravo Unit arrives we cannot tell you what has happened here."

"Bullshit." I pointed at the camera mounted over our heads on one of the pillars. "What. Did. You. Do?"

Sgt. Matthews frowned deeply, dark eyes flickering up where I pointed for a brief second even if his head or body didn't move. "It seems you have well-informed connections. I'll assume you know what this room was for."

"Assumptions are what got you this pile of bodies," I growled. "You fucking idiots. Trusting Grimm…believing you could control him. _Any_ of us. Auphe can't be trusted. You humans should learn that quickly."

As if to emphasize my point, a gate peel open behind me. Larger than for one body. I spun in a heartbeat, then the organ took a flying leap into my throat when I saw my son and my brother standing amidst corpse on the metal grating.

"Dad!"

"No!" I shouted waving them back. "Go home! Now! Go back to your brother!" The soldiers around us were gaping at my lanky boy. It was his coming out party and this was far from anything I wanted. The Vigil may have known they'd shot Dante when kidnapping Cassie, not me, but they only had suspicions that he survived. They hadn't known for sure and I hadn't wanted them to find out. Not now. Not ever really, but that was stretching it. "Now, Dante!"

He hesitated; white wings peppered with black feather flickered into existence on his back. They stretched in the huge room. "Dad."

"You promised you would take care of him."

"Go," Niko prompted with a squeeze to Dante's shoulder. "I'll stay."

Dante conceded at Nik's word, but I wanted big brother in this mess as much as I wanted my son. "No, damn it. Niko, you have other things to worry about at home now!"

Niko's gray eyes narrowed. "Then don't make me choose."

One of the massive metal doors around the outer curve of the dome squealed open like a walk-in fridge in desperate need of some WD-40. Now the lab coats entered. Apparently, they hadn't gotten the cameras back up and running because there was no way they would let their second stringers in with me in the room. Further evident when the black-clad army boys went about guarding the scientist that were filing in, like I was going to follow in Grimm's sick footsteps.

"Oh dear, I warned them," one of them started muttering as soon he saw the carnage left behind. Except for that one, the nerd team stayed lined up near the door, petrified by the gore before them and probably under the impression that it was my handiwork. Fine. Fear was a great incentive for cooperation.

At least the soldiers were smart enough not to aim their weapons at Nik and Sgt. Matthews was a bright crayon for keeping his head.

"Start clearing out the bodies. Fugitive Alpha Tango 3 wants the same we do. He is a minimal threat if we considered him such." Matthews motioned for the lab coats to come down. "Bravo Unit, get to work. We need those answers fast." Then he panned his dark eyes over to me. As relaxed as his tone was his finger still itched at his trigger. "Alpha Tango 3 would you kindly remove your foot from my superior's neck? Without cooperation there is no hope of getting Alpha Delta 8 back."

"Castiella," I corrected as I kicked my heel to the Major's jaw, before stepping away. "Her name is Castiella."

The muttering king of the science nerds wandered over to a console that wasn't there a second ago. Lifted right out of the grate floor like a rock star's stage platform.

"I warned you." He shook a stubby finger at the closest solider and then used it to push up black-framed glasses. "This is exactly what I said would happen." A stereotypical lab rat, he was short in stature and bald as a cue ball. He looked like a younger version of that bald dude on Sex in the City and I felt a little less of a man for that comparison.

"Roger, keep it quiet," Matthews demanded.

"I'd just like it known that I told you Project Charlemagne was going to be an utter failure. A bomb," Roger complained as he tapped fingers to the console keys. "A bomb, I said. And look at this. All these people dead, all of my friends slaughtered."

Beady eyes fell on me from behind those thick glasses. "I told them to use the girl. Castiella was receptive. _She_ had a conscience due to the natural receptors of the peri race. But Grimm is a homicidal sociopath."

"No argument there," I muttered in response. Roger nodded and turned back to the console grumbling about all the families now without a loved one. Unfortunately, I had much less of a conscience than my lover. I didn't give a shit about the corpse around us. I wouldn't have given a shit about Roger either, if he didn't sound like he knew what was going on. _And_ sounded like he didn't agree with the boss' scruples.

"Your presence isn't necessary here, Fugitive Alpha Tango 3," Matthews interjected. I sneered at him when he dared a step closer. "We will need your assistance later. Once we understand the situation we will need you to open another Ring to retrieve the rogue subjects."

"Excuse me?"

"Or would you rather us ask your son? They come of age so quickly."

That set my teeth to grind. Niko felt the shift in my body. Sensed that I was about to give them a couple dozen more bodies to haul out of here. He grabbed my arm and pulled me back from the Sergeant.

"You will keep us informed," my brother demanded. "And I would suggest never approaching or speaking of my nephew again."

Matthews took in a deep breath. Judging by the tremble in his cheek muscles he knew what denying either of those demands would entail. Namely, his entrails splattered all over these pillars and amps.

"If communication and cooperation are obtained from your brother we have no need to involve anyone else."

I didn't believe him. Not one bit. He knew Dante was alive, knew he was older, and could easily be a new experiment for them. I glanced around at the dozen armed men collecting bodies and piling them on rolling flat beds to be sorted later. All of them saw. Anyone of them could speak.

"Nik, I'll meet you at home," I said and without waiting for him to reply gated his ass back to the penthouse. I stayed. Sgt. Matthews rolled his shoulders back, brow lifted, and hero-jaw jutting. I grinned. He knew, oh, he knew I'd just kicked my keeper to the curb. "Hey, there."

"There is nothing for you to do here," Matthews prompted, almost sounding like a little kid pleading for the monster to go back under his bed.

"Do they already know?" I asked politely, though my smirk probably read differently.

"What happened to your lover? No, I told you—"

"What happened to my son. Do your superiors already know?"

"Everyone has been informed that second Nephilim is in your possession."

I waited. He knew I wasn't talking about Connor.

His square jaw tightened. He glanced at his comrades. "Whether I say yes or no I am sentencing my men to death for what they saw."

The movement around us slowed, eyes fixed on us and hands inched toward guns strapped over shoulders. That comment said it all. It was always something I had wondered. If we had hidden Dante well enough. The Vigil might have known we busted him half-split open out of the hospital the night they shot him thinking it was me. They just hadn't known the condition of my son. They hadn't known he survived. Until now.

All I had to do was clean up here. Pop off a couple headshot, explode a few with a gate. The scientist could keep on working. They hadn't seen Dante.

"I have a daughter," Matthews said, calling my attention back to him. I knew the implication in those words. A proclaimed vow of silence. He would kill for his daughter and he knew I would do the same for my son. "The survival of the first Nephilim was assumed but unconfirmed. They would have seen him eventually, though. Enough families have lost a loved one today. Please don't increase the loss for the inevitable."

I stared him down. The Major's weapon was right at my feet. An MPK ripe for the picking.

"Prove to us you are better than him. Prove to us you're different."

Heat raced up my spine, hitting the base of my skull like a branding iron, but I kept the rage in check and grinned. "I am better than him."

"Prove it," Matthews countered, unflinching. Challenging me _not_ to kill everyone in black in this room. It was a gamble and a plea and I had to respect him a bit for it.

"Word of advice," I said with a tilt of my head. "Transfer out of this outfit. Go to Boston and look up some douchebag named Josh Dent. He's your fucking soulmate."

I stepped back from the MPK as Matthews gave a perplexed look.

"Oh," I added. I gated next to the nerd king, who yelped when I clasped a hand to his shoulder. "I'm borrowing this."

Four-eyes blanched as he went from standing in front of his console to being shoved into the posh white leather of my living room sofa. Then he turned green, doubled over, and vomited on the carpet.

I grimaced and dodged the remains of a Mexican dinner.

"Damn it, Cal," Niko snapped as he rushed over to help the nerd upright. He actually shoved me back so I dropped ass down on the coffee table.

I couldn't help but laugh about it; albeit it sounded a little more than neurotic and slightly psychotic. "I thought we weren't supposed to be cursing in front of the munchkins." Both of mine were standing in the space between kitchen table and island, the big one holding tight to the little one.

"What did you do?"

"Why are you acting like I was the one that went Red Dawn in there? I didn't kill anyone."

Niko gave me a sharp glare. "Because kidnapping is a virtue."

"If we are comparing and the kidnapping doesn't include torture, I would much prefer that over death," Roger interjected, with that stubby finger pointed up.

I snorted and readjusted my seat on the coffee table. Satisfied that, other than dealing with the after effects of a gate, king nerd wasn't hurting, Niko stood to circle around me and sit on the matching leather chair.

"Can you tell us what happened?" he asked.

Roger's magnified eyes darted between me and Niko, assessing only us since he wasn't aware enough to realize we weren't the only ones in the room. Dante and Promise were giving us a wide berth. Rio was still at the computer…still in my house, the ballsy mule. I also noticed Dante had taken on my fatherly duty of feeding Connor, so I concentrated on the answers I intended to get from the lab rat.

"Without proper education in Roman's theories or any theory of particle physics, relativity, or spatial shifting it might be quite difficult for me to explain," Roger told us in that socially awkward way that implied he didn't realize half of that was pompous insult.

"Spatial shifting," I echoed. I tugged my spare Ka-bar out from under the cushion to Roger's right and started picking at the dirt under my nails. "Kinda like how you got here? Traveling, gating, spatial shifting…I think I know that theory."

"You know the practice, not the theory, and not to the spectrum that we were researching. Your 'gates', as you call them, tear the very fabric of space. You separate particles of this plane to pull in particles of a very different plane right up against it. It is remarkable and I would love to study it further if you would allow me to. You see my superiors don't trust your kind…"

I tapped the serrated edge of the knife to his khaki pants, causing him to trail off and swallow hard. He gaped at the blade.

"They have good reason, but I don't really care about theories. You can share lectures with Niko about it after all this is through." I lifted the Ka-bar, flipped it to my other hand, and set it to the coffee table beside me. There was no need to scare the piss out of this guy. One, I liked my couch piss-free and two, he seemed as capable of shutting his trap as Goodfellow amidst one of his puck stories –or anytime really.

"What I want to know," I continued now that I had Roger's undivided attention. "Is where you sent my lover and if you…how you can bring her back."

"Not where, hopefully, but when," Roger said. He even said it in that cliché sci-fi way. "Five years in the past."


	5. Chapter 5 - Cal

CHAPTER FIVE

ƆȺȽ

You learn something new everyday. Never was a truer testament to that phrase than today. Today I learned angels and demons were real after taking out one of the winged legends with a handful of angels that had opted out of the whole all-powerful spiel eons ago. One of whom was my boss, who had been lying to us about heaven and hell from the moment we met him.

I also learned that even if there were a multitude of heavens they weren't for me and my brother. Our path was reincarnation which, all things considered, didn't seem that bad –for me. I felt a little sorry for Niko since he had to go through puberty with me again and again. I wasn't the easiest brother to deal with and Goodfellow –the puck that had crossed paths with us throughout multiple lifetimes– told us that it was always that way. Honorable and loyal Niko and his ass of a relative.

Considering those whoppers, I felt my schooling should have ended there at the bar my not-quite angel boss owned with my brother and Goodfellow kicking back and celebrating our survival with scotch and wine. But no. Such was never my life.

Today I learned one more thing. Ishiah had a niece, that niece was Goodfellow's ultimate best friend for a thousand plus years, and she had come back from the dead.

Awesome.

Ishiah interrupted our boozing to tell us this. Walked to the bar from the back door and stood before us as if my vicious glare for lying to us about the whole angel-thing wasn't searing his skin off. "I hate to interrupt this well deserved moment of repose," which was another lie he uttered. "But there is another situation that needs our attention."

"Now?" I complained. Pyriel/Jack had obliterated two of my ribs with his antics. I was just now able to walk around without saying 'ow' at every step. I didn't really want to jump head long into another job, especially one Ishiah would deem difficult enough that he needed help with it.

"This might not be a situation that calls for violence, but we need to be cautious." He was being delicate, which meant one of us or all three wouldn't like this particular situation.

Without much explanation he took us to his house. Somewhere I'd never been before. So I learned that my peri boss wasn't a fan of anything remotely luxurious too. He lived in a flat. One room, one bed, no television –not even an old tube one– no computer…he had a rotary phone hooked into his lan line for fuck's sake. I was lucky he shelled out some cash for flat screens at the bar.

On his bed there was an unconscious girl. At first, I thought we were about to be witness to infidelity coming from the least expected party of Ishiah and Goodfellow's relationship. She looked like a doll; a very beaten up and broken doll. And Ishiah didn't seem the sadomasochistic type…of course, I had seen what Robin was working with and I did know some things about homosexual relationships so maybe it was just that Ishiah didn't seem the sadistic type.

Her face was round and porcelain white. Dark blond eyebrows curved in pain over eyes that were probably big and round with innocence when open. Her lips were full and pink, naturally-shaped in a bow. Her nose small and upturned. She was cute…adorable even, but she was also bandaged up like a mummy. Her neck had gauze wrapped around it and I could see it looped at a diagonal over her sternum to disappear under the sheets pulled up to her collarbones. The sheets covered the rest, but as Ish listed off her injuries I knew more splints and bandages coiled around her pale skin and skinny limbs underneath.

Goodfellow seemed to know her, considering he never eased down onto my sickbed with the same flabbergasted awe. He took up her hand, squeezing the pale digits as if to assure himself she were real. His mossy green eyes fell on a very stoic-looking Ishiah, uttering faintly the singular word, "How?"

Ishiah shook his head. "I don't know, Robin. Samyel found her a block from his apartment. It seems she lost control in flight and crashed into the construction site on Chambers Street."

"Near Chinatown?" I lifted my eyebrows. "Crashed into which floor? That skeleton is at least seventeen stories." With a whole lot of rebar, concrete, and metal exposed.

"Knowing Castiella, all of them," Ishiah commented wearily.

"So who is she?" I asked. The name didn't ring a bell and her scent wasn't giving off any clues unless she was a nymph of some sort, which I doubted since those that could fly couldn't get more than ten feet off the ground.

"Castiella," Ishiah repeated. "My niece."

My eyebrows couldn't go up much further, but they certainly tried. "Niece, huh?" I glanced back at the now identified peri. "She's cute."

Niko scolded me with a kick to my ankle. It stung a bit more than he usually dished out for a minor offense, but I attributed that to the wine he'd been drinking less than twenty minutes ago.

"What? It's a compliment." I turned and addressed my boss. "Ishiah, you have a cute niece and there is nothing wrong with that."

Ishiah didn't appreciate my dry joke, but he rarely appreciated anything I said. "She's more of a surrogate niece. Not blood…she wasn't born in a conventional manner and she was never of Heaven."

There was that dirty word again. Heaven. I sneered at Ishiah's back as he turned and approached Robin before expounding on that new information.

The lying sack of feathers touched Robin's shoulder and asked him to change Castiella's dressings for him. Once the request was accepted with a shallow nod, Ishiah moved off to his kitchen motioning for Niko to follow. I trailed after with an eye on Goodfellow. That was until he cut through the bandages around the girl's chest and exposed her without a thought, then I thought it better to concentrate on Ishiah and Niko so not to get punched by a virtuous brother or run through by Uncle Ishiah's flaming sword for my indecency.

"Castiella was Robin's closest friend for the better part of two thousand years," Ishiah said, explaining the puck's immediate magnetism to her bedside. The peri, with his wings flickering in and out of existence due to nerves, set out a few cups as if we'd come over for tea time. "I'd never seen her brighter than when she was with him. And, with her…Robin was never lonely."

Ishiah took in a long breath through his regal nose. The muscles in his cheek twitch under the scar that led down one side of his face. Then he pulled two thin stacks of hundred dollar bills out of a drawer and set them next to Niko's hand on the tiny counter.

I glanced over at my brother, but he held no reaction other than a flick of his gaze over the cash then back up to Ishiah.

"I'm hiring you," the peri said in a near whisper. "Ten thousand."

"To do what?" I hissed. Ishiah knew very well we weren't technically hitmen and I sure as hell doubted he would put a mark on his niece.

"Robin adores Castiella. He will take her home with him, take care of her, dote on her, and be completely blinded by her."

Niko met my eyes when I glanced over at him this time. His dark blond eyebrows were just as twisted in perplexity as mine were in irritation. "Um, Ish," I started, hesitant to continue for fear he would answer yes. "Are you seriously hiring us to make sure he doesn't cheat on you? Maybe you should have a little more faith him in. He's been doing really well with this whole monogamy thing."

Ishiah gave me a stale glare. His lips creased into a thin white line, then he turned bodily to Niko even if I was pretty sure my brother had been thinking something similar. "He will let his guard down. I need you to make sure she doesn't hurt him."

"She's a danger then? If she was loyal to Robin before it must have been an excruciating parting for her to want to hurt him," Niko commented.

"That's one way to put it." Ishiah's blue-gray eyes slid to their corners to watch his lover for a moment. "As Robin told me, Castiella was murdered in front of him over eight hundred years ago."

There was an understandable pause to take that in. I leaned back on my heels and adjusted the gun under my arm, mostly to make sure it was still there in case I had to kill another zombie. Right, another thing learned, although that one was a few weeks ago. Zombies were possible, but only at the touch of a psychotic angel with the ability to raise the death. Thankfully, I was assured that there were only a few of those out there.

"Am I to believe she is a raised…corpse, then?" Niko asked cautiously. There really wasn't an easy way to tell someone their relative was the undead and needed a solid double-tap to the head. Well, actually that hadn't even worked for the zombies Jack raised.

"Does she smell like a corpse?" Ishiah countered dully.

"No, she actually smells pretty amazing." That got me the punch I'd been avoiding earlier. I rubbed at my arm and sneered at my brother. "Again, _not_ an insult and totally appropriate for the question asked. She smells like wildflowers and midnight, nothing like those zombies on the bridge."

"Wildflowers and midnight?" my brother echoed in disbelief.

"Shut the hell up," I snapped, then looked at my boss as I lowered my voice. "Listen, Ish. Goodfellow's been known to embellish his stories."

"Embellish," Ishiah emphasized. "Not lie. And this particular event was spoken to me in tears and using just three sentences."

Now that was impressive for a tale-weaving puck. Three sentences? He couldn't order his dinner in three sentences.

"They ripped her heart out in front of me," Robin chimed in. He stood from the bed after tucking the sheets around the supposed Castiella. Our voices had been low for the most part, but it was ridiculous to think a being that lived his life on gossip wouldn't have an ear for whispers.

"Something very, very few paien could survive. They left that heart at my feet before they spirited her corpse away from me." He raked a hand through his curly mop of honey brown hair, tilted his head back and forth as if cracking his neck. "Yet, here she is. A perfect copy. Encantado?"

"The Orquídeas Roja extract held no reaction," Ishiah recited as if he wasn't speaking in some different language. "We've discounted Nhang, Doppelganger, and Rakshasa. With no reason for her to be she is Castiella by all accounts."

"Which is impossible because she's dead," I offered, though it sounded like a question to even me.

"Could you have been mistaken, Goodfellow?" Niko pushed again. "This 'they', I realize, murdered a loved one, but would it be possible to confront them to get answers. They might have feigned her death for whatever reason."

Goodfellow crossed his arms across his pressed shirt, still standing between us and the bed. His dubious gaze moved to his lover. Usually a smug grin would accompany that know-it-all look, but tonight he had on his serious face. "You would not want to confront this particular 'them'. In fact, you have spent most of Caliban's life evading 'them'. And know from experience that 'they' find no entertainment in feigning anything that involves blood. Besides you and Cal have successfully driven 'them' out of existence."

"The Auphe?" The words erupted from my mouth like they were tearing through tissue on the way out. "Why would the Auphe attack a peri?"

"For one, have you ever known an Auphe to be prejudice with their prey? And…well, Cas and I racked up enemies in nearly every city and village we came across. Not that it was unwarranted very often, but you know some paien just offend too easily. Needless to say, the Auphe wouldn't have left Cassie alive." There was a meaningful pause, where he gazed down at the girl on the bed. "They had no used for her, so that meant death."

"So we're back to how is she alive?" I pointed out.

"She'll have to tell us when she wakes up," Goodfellow replied. He tapped at his lips with one finger, then eased back down to sit on the edge of the mattress; having nothing left to say, which was a first.

Ishiah pushed away from the kitchen counter, leaving the cash there. I'd admit my eyes lingered on the stacks for a few seconds –Rapture had a gorgeous Savage 550 I'd had my eye on– before I turned to watch the lovers gather over the creature that was apparently both predator and victim. Beside me, Niko sighed and picked up one stack of bills.

"Apparently, we're taking the job," I told Ishiah. And at a discount no less.

Ishiah was right on all accounts too. Before she even woke, hell, as soon as the IV drip finished, Robin scooped up the little creature cloaked as a peri and took her battered form home with him. Niko and I had no choice, but to follow. We took the money after all. Though Niko claimed five grand was enough unless things went south. I think that had more to do with Ish putting up with a half demon working in a bar full of former angels. Or maybe the Auphe weren't demons, but I had a feeling it was close enough to assume.

I would have pocketed the other half under the pretense that the winged hypocrite had lied to us for years about his lineage, but I didn't really fancy a flaming sword shoved up places where more than just bullshit exited.

So to the lavish Soho apartment we went, in odd silence. I figured Goodfellow would be yammering our ears off about all the shenanigans he and his best friend got into, but the puck remained somber in the back seat of the taxi. The driver let Niko sit shotgun (he had an honest face), Robin affectionately stroked the girl's hair as he stared out the window introspectively, and I shifted uncomfortably with her legs across my lap in the back with Goodfellow.

She weighed nearly nothing and her legs were a fraction of that, but it wasn't the burden that made me tense. I kept waiting for her eyes to open to a milky death stare or her skin to peel off when I lifted her bare ankles so they weren't digging into my thigh. She remained unconscious and innocuous though and Robin remained in denial.

Castiella, as Robin continually called her, was barely 5'3", skinny, and far from broad in any sense of the word. Her face was heart-shaped and her eyes round. If Ishiah was compared to a Golden Eagle ready to disembowel a rabbit then Castiella looked like one of those fluffy little owlets currently taking the internet by storm. The only trait she seemed to share with her uncle was the darker eyebrows, two shades deeper than her hair of mixed blonds and auburns.

The majority of her injuries were sustained from her ill-fated flight over the construction site. The broken wrist, two bruised ribs, and fractured leg were all contusions from the fall. She also had several deep puncture wounds that Ishiah had hastily stitched up, probably from exposed rebar and pipes.

Actually Ishiah told us it was rebar, because when they found her unconscious on the concrete foundation there was an inch and a half wide coil of steel implanted in her throat. Through it actually, which was why her neck was mostly bandaged up. She was lucky it didn't split her spine in two. As it was, it was highly unlikely she'd be able to take in solid foods let alone explain to us what the hell she was when she woke up, but that didn't stop Goodfellow from trusting in her supposed identity and coddling her close so the potholes didn't jostle.

"She seems small," I commented when the rumble of the cab's engine no longer satisfied for background noise. "I mean considering Ishiah."

A twitch of a smile caught the puck's mouth and he looked down at the head in his lap that wasn't doing things heads normally did in his lap…or so I would assume and quickly resolved not to think on too deeply.

"Ishiah is tall and deliciously broad, this is true. Hymns are written about the beauty and majesty of angels, far too many considering the abhorrent lack of praise given to a creature far more majestic and beautiful as I. Yet, my feathered saint is truly that on many levels more than any current angel would deem saintly. He holds favor with Heaven still, despite his homestead being of Earth and despite his adoption of what they would call an abomination." He gave me a wink. "And I don't mean you, though I'm sure that is not looked lightly upon either. Paien and angels do not lay like lion and lamb, or rather they lay like lion and lamb would in nature."

"But she's peri," I countered, glancing down at the girl. "Aren't all peri fallen angels?"

Robin snorted as if I'd told a joke. "The fallen are demons, Cal. Fallen from Heaven during the vicious and glorious Battle of the Morning Star as their god fell silent in disgust or disappointment or perhaps even boredom at the senseless killing of brothers. Punishment was still in order, silent or no, and God banished the fallen to Hell. There they transformed into the demons they are today. Swindling and manipulating humans like the best of tricksters, only the demons take souls and are much more violent. Their time-out doesn't seem to be taking." He took in a breath to sigh and shook his head. "Allah, Gaia, Odin, Zeus, and God forbid the angels hear you call them fallen. The peri are all former angels, yes, but they have been given leave from Heaven. A retirement if you will."

"Earth is Florida for angels?"

Robin shook his head in good humor again, but didn't answer. I watched pedestrians wander on the sidewalks and street lamps flicker overhead for a minute or so, but I wasn't will to let this slide. After years of keeping this from us, the puck was finally coming clean, it had been a whirlwind of information –past lives, Heaven and Hell, and raised bodies – but I could handle the avalanche if it helped me face one of those glass statues with razor wings again.

"Why haven't we seen them? Angel and demons?"

"Because seventy years ago we booted their sorry asses out of New York," the cabby chimed in, startling even Niko, who'd been listening introspectively to the conversation. The swarthy man extended a flat palm back behind his seat and Goodfellow aptly smacked it in a high-five of celebratory commiseration.

As a side bar, the puck leaned over to explain. "Marcel is a Lutin." I glared, seriously not giving a shit, though it did explain why the cabby didn't bat an eye at our conversation.

"What do you mean you drove them out?"

Robin grinned wide. "That should be a story told another time and preferably with some good wine. Manhattan is heavenly and demonic host free and will remain as such. As I said, paien don't play well with the righteous above and below. The peris remain because I said so and others hold great respect for my words, contrary to your shallow and misguided belief that I spin nothing but fluff from my delectably perfect mouth."

I resituated myself in my seat, regretting even asking him to open that mouth.

"Robin," Niko hedged from the front seat when I clearly gave up. "If not his niece and not a former angel, what exactly are we facing here with this friend of yours?"

"She was created by a god, just not Heaven's God. She was not meant to be, but was. A string of chaos plucked when her maker was bored. And left to unravel when his attention waned."

The puck had on a far off look as he spoke, stroking the girl's hair again and trailing his knuckles over her cheek. "She is fable and myth, nightmare and heaven sent. A true challenge and so easy to love." His smile faltered and he glanced out the window. "Her maker is unmade though, so her presence is even more a mystery. She shouldn't exist."

I lifted my eyebrows and gave Niko a meaningful look. Our puck had lost it. No other way to explain the riddles and Shakespearian bullshit vomiting from his 'perfect' mouth. My brother gave me a minute shake of his head and turned around in his seat.

I kept my mouth shut until we got into Robin's apartment. Unsurprisingly, the doorman didn't even bat an eye when he carted an unconscious girl draped in a bed sheet and very little else through the front door. They greeted him by name in passing like overly jubilant bellhops in a 1920s hotel.

Once we were inside his place that was when the doting began. Not that I hadn't seen it in the cab as well. He cradled her like a princess, laid her out on his own bed without a single thought to his guest bedroom. He spent several minutes just stroking her hair, while Nik and I waited in the threshold of his room.

It took him time to slip on his usual attitude like one of his finely-tailored blazer. The moment he stepped into the main room his smile blossomed and he offered us a drink. "Well, shall we continue our previous celebration? Although Ishiah is kind enough to stock a few decent labels in his bar, he can not hope to obtain the treasures in my wet bar."

"Are we really going to do this?" I asked when Niko obediently sat down at one of the backless stools in front of Goodfellow's wet bar. Of course he would have one in his formally packed with naked bodies bungalow. I noticed that the swing had been taken down, though; perhaps a subtle nod to his monogamous state.

My brother waved off the booze when the puck offered, but he still looked like he was willing to let this elephant in the form of an undead non-peri peri wander the room. After the month I'd just endured, I was not as amiable to brush this under the plush white rug in Goodfellow's living space.

"We're not going to address the fact that Ishiah just hired us to kill your best friend if she turns into a zombie and tries to kill you?" I motioned to the bedroom where we had left the girl hooked up to IV fluid bag number two.

Robin shot back his glass filled with a richly amber liquid. "No, we aren't."

"And why the hell not, Loman? She shows up out of nowhere, pummeled by a building I assume she would have previously had no trouble navigating. And she's got that weird metal thing on her spine that no one has so much as mentioned even though it's pretty conspicuous!" I swept my hand back around to point at Robin emphatically. "For that matter, why the hell didn't Ishiah tell you about her when they found her? Why did he wait until now?"

"We were a bit preoccupied as of late. Ishiah didn't want to add to it. Besides the fact that he had to report what happened to Pyriel so he didn't have much time to contact us either." the puck replied, glossing over every other valid point I was making like he usually did when phallic or sexual words popped into my comments. I rolled my eyes. Ishiah said Robin would be blinded by her presence, but I didn't think he'd be blind to her condition too.

"She's a cyborg zombie that 'shouldn't be'."

Goodfellow tilted his head to one side as he poured himself another drink. I doubted he was celebrating anymore; he was stressed. Confused, stressed, and probably a bit more than hopeful. "She is neither, Caliban. The contraption on her neck is currently unexplained, but there is no one that would be able to contain her long enough to implant more than that little metal into her, so I hardly believe that constitutes her being a latex covered fanciful science fiction heroine out of one of your comic books. And as she has a pulse and breath I do believe that negates your claim that she is the dead risen as well."

"Am I correct in believing all those that Pyriel raised would cease animation when he was killed?" Niko asked, taking up a glass stirrer and flipping it over his knuckles absently.

"The only thing that would have survived would be his influence on the cultist," Goodfellow confirmed.

"Then how do you explain her being alive?" I countered. "If she isn't risen, isn't some sort of shapeshifter or skinwalker, and wasn't reanimated by her apparently dead _god_, then what is she?"

"An enigma," Robin joked half-heartedly.

I shook my head, gritting my teeth. "I hate to tell you this, Loman, but right now every sense in my body is telling me to kill her or…" I stopped myself before saying something highly in appropriate and a little more than my usual depravity.

Goodfellow grinned and almost chuckled. "Kill her or mount her, yes?"

I felt an uncharacteristic blush rise from my neck. It wasn't often anymore that Goodfellow could make me personally uncomfortable, but how he read into thoughts I had been shoving down to the bottom of my brain from the moment I caught her scent jarred me. "There is a reason for that, I assure you, but that story I'm not ready to divulge. We'll just say it's her scent that attracts you."

"What's the reason?" I countered more than a little disturbed that he pinpointed the moment the predatory urges started up in my lizard brain.

"You don't listen very well, Caliban. I said later. Besides it isn't my story to tell."

"She can't speak, Loman. Even if we wake her now!"

"Then the anticipation will kill you," Robin countered. He finished yet another drink and set the glass onto the bar firmly. His green eyes focused on his own hand for a moment. "I promise you. She will not hurt me. I know that is what Ishiah fears, but the only reason she would hurt me was if she wasn't Castiella. And despite my confused lover's trepidation and inherent lack of confidence in the face of his absolute adoration of me, there is no paien alive that will successfully dispatch me in my own home. We have nothing to fear from her." He paused in looked at me. "Well, you might have something to fear. She, understandably, isn't fond of Auphe, but she might feel pity for you considering you were thrust into the lineage."

Giving up, I flopped down into the bar stool next to Niko and upended the drink Robin had set out for me in the very beginning of the conversation. "So my scent would make her want to kill me and her scent makes me want to have sex with her? Sounds like a normal relationship to me."

"To you, yes," Niko scoffed.

"Your girlfriend would have drained you dry three hundred years ago," I countered dryly.

Niko frowned and let the stirrer tap to the granite counter. Robin had on a secret little smile, either for what I said or for the little secrets he was keeping. We would get them out of him eventually, but for now I was satisfied with the tremendous amount of earth-shifting knowledge that had been dumped on me today. I needed a nap. Desperate enough for one that I even laid down on a couch I had no doubt Robin had had sex on. Niko wouldn't be leaving this apartment any time soon after accepting the mission, so I got comfy. Because even if Goodfellow assured the girl wouldn't go Night of the Living Dead on us, I wasn't about to leave my brother alone if the puck was wrong. Well, I would at least stay until I got bored.


	6. Chapter 6 - Cal

CHAPTER SIX

ƆȺȽ

The smell of sugar, flour, and egg mixed together to form one of the best smells in the world. It wafted up my nostrils the moment I opened the glass door to Rapture's Buns. I took in a deep breath, letting the sweetness overload erase the fragrance of earthy flowers and shadow tang that had been lingering since I left Goodfellow's Soho apartment.

The bakery was a front, but an exceptionally successful one. Run by a large, vivacious woman named Rapture the shop was raved about in all the New York's best lists even with its flaking paint and rundown limited seating. I wasn't in the market for red velvet or triple chocolate diabetes bombs. I was in the market for actual bombs, namely from the stash of apocalyptic arsenal Rapture had in the back.

I gave her a nod when she saw me. Her under-the-counter customers paid a lot more than those needed a sugar high, so she didn't take long to scoot around the plastic domed counter to greet me like a brother she hasn't seen for months. "_Cachorro gruñón_," she called. A nickname I couldn't shrug off since I first met her. It meant grouchy puppy in Puerto Rican. Considering my demeanor it could have been worse, but trying to get her to call me El Diablo or even Cal was harder than convincing Niko bacon had more nutrients bathed in its own grease. He was dubbed _hermano, el buenorro_ on the black market books and he hated it just as well, because being the 'handsome brother' he got her mentally striping him of all his clothes.

"Hey Rapture," I greeted in return after she shoved my face in her voluminous cleavage exploding from a bright orange corset top three sizes too small for any part of her. "Heard you have my order ready."

"You only come to see me when you want something. And why don't you visit with your _esbelto_ _rubio_ brother anymore?" With her arm looped through mine, she led me through the back room kitchen filled with huge ovens and metal push carts, passed the muscle playing Blackjack on a rickety bistro table and into the back, backroom.

"Niko's on zombie watch for a friend of ours. I'll bring him by next time."

"You said that last time," she whined. Rapture spun her entire three-hundred pound frame to stand in front of me. She cupped my face and squeezed my cheeks 'til it hurt. "I love seeing this handsome scowling face, but you always look so lost without your _cuate_."

"I promise. Next time," I said and pried her hands from my face. She was human, not knowing exactly what I was, and she was a bit much for me to deal with, but I still knew better than to piss off a fiery Puerto Rican woman. She'd be liable to bend me over her knee and spank me with a Smith and Wesson for talking back, then shoot me in the foot for the lesson's end.

Rapture tossed her hands up in flamboyant aggravation spouting off more Spanish than was in my vocabulary bank and moved off to get her books. "With men like you, _cachorro gruñón,_ a woman never knows if there will be a next time."

I doubted she was referring to men who never called back after a date. She didn't know I was half-Auphe, but she certainly knew I was into jobs that required the regular purchase of grenades, ammo, and the occasional antitank system. Niko made me sell that one back to her; it didn't fit under the bed with my flamethrower. Rapture said she would hold it for me until the next time I needed it, but I knew it was mostly because the only people who would want it she wouldn't sell it to.

"Here we are. Four boxes 9mm, two boxes explosive round, and a dozen grenades," she paused. "No special orders today? Still thinking about Sally?"

"There isn't much use a man like me has for a sniper rifle, but she is beautiful." Rapture beamed and I scratched at the back of my head. "You wouldn't happen to have a flaming gladius in stock because I have a feeling I may need one soon to de-wing a few angels."

Rapture gave me an odd look. "I do have a gladius, though it is more for a collector. It would hardly keep up with you."

I shook my head and pulled out my wallet. "It was a joke. I just need my regular order to stock up. I'll get back to you on heavenly weapons if I need one."

"_Claro_," she gave the list to a blockheaded black shirt and shooed him off. I signed her books with one of my many aliases and tried to think if I forgot anything.

"I have a special present for you," Rapture cooed. She stuffed the roll of cash I'd given her between her huge boobs and sashayed off to a set of metal lockers along one wall, opened one, a produced a sleek black leather jacket. "You've been wearing that ratty one for too long. Even duct tape can't save that_ pedazo de mierda_."

She took the jacket off the hanger and tossed it too me. It vaguely smelled of blood, but then against so did all my clothes. It had been scrubbed clean, though I didn't doubt it had been the jacket of some idiot dead in a gutter for crossing Rapture.

"Thanks." She motioned for me to put it on and I was too weary to come up with an excuse not to. I shrugged off my busted jacket and slid on the gift. It fit well, just a little wide in the shoulders which just provided room for more concealed weapons. "Like a glove," I offered and tugged the sleeves down in a Bond impression. Rapture handed me back my old jacket, probably realizing by the weight there were more than just zippers and a wallet in there.

Blockhead came back with my order already wrapped up in a cardboard reinforced plastic bag sporting Rapture Bun's in pink boxes on the side. Inside my grenades and ammo were packed up neatly in to-go cake boxes the shade of pink no man felt comfortable carrying. I rolled my shoulders under my new jacket, starting to like the feel of calf skin.

"Thanks for the goods, Rapture, and the gift."

She brushed off my shoulders grinning like a mother gazing upon her son in his graduation gown. Never got one of those, but I imagined I'd look something like a young Trent Reznor joining a gospel choir if I had. Rapture said something in Spanish I hoped was a compliment, then sent me off with two cupcakes; one carrot cake and one that was the cupcake equivalent of a chocolate éclair. I'd probably end up eating both of them, but I'd let her believe Niko would consume sugary sin for her.

On the street, I called my brother. It wasn't that he disliked Rapture, but more that he was on mission point. He took money from a friend, which meant he was going to work this tedious job extra thoroughly. If that meant camping out at Goodfellow's 24/7 he was going to do that heroically. Something told me that wouldn't have been the case should the puck not have been in a committed relationship.

"Hey, big bro. How's sleeping beauty?" I asked when he picked up.

"She's woken a few times. Sporadically. Very disoriented and showing signs of panic and trauma, but she hasn't lifted a finger against Goodfellow or even me. No aggression what so ever."

"Something tells me there's a 'but' that's actually going to make us earn that 5k." A trickle of ice ran down my spine, the metaphoric kind. I stopped on the sidewalk and edged over to a shop window. Some people said your ears burned when someone was taking about you behind her back. Other wives' tales said nose itches were from someone thinking about you. It was all a crock of shit, but instinct and Niko's painstakingly meticulous training certainly told me when I was being followed.

"She currently can't speak. The damage to her trachea and esophagus is too substantial. Though we knew that might be an issue when she was having trouble breathing before she woke."

As Niko's voice kept me calm over the line, I surveyed the streets behind me through the window's reflection. It was the usual eclectic group walking the streets. Human and paien close enough they could pass as human.

Other than a werewolf with a baseball cap and a human with a doomsday sign pandering on the opposite corner I couldn't identify anyone as a remote threat. Then again the last idiots to tangle with me _were _human, a cult for Jack in matching white hoodies. I reassessed the human herd a little more closely. Leaned in toward the window as if highly intrigued by the newest best sellers on display. Well, this shop had to be a front; no one owed a bookstore anymore.

"Her hands work, right? Make her write," I commented. No, even the humans look like the usual little ants in motion. No body ticks or suspicious looks my way.

"She's written some, but hasn't been especially coherent until a few minutes ago. Unfortunately, with that coherence she had also clammed up. She won't tell us what happened to her other than she'd fallen hard mid-flight. She maintains that she is Castiella, but won't explain how she can survive her heart being removed."

"Meaning she doesn't remember what happened?"

"She refused to talk about it."

I turned around, lifted my eyes to the roofs of the shorter, older Manhattan buildings. Auphe liked to hide out up there and, while I was positive they were all nuked to hell, the bae Grimm created might enjoy the same stalking pastime. I didn't see any smudges of white scaly bodies among the grime, antenna, and smoke stacks. Not did I see any strange metal contraptions like Janus the Rom-powered golem.

I sighed and started down the sidewalk again. The shadow could follow if it wanted. I wasn't above breaking out a shiny new grenade or two to shove up its ass. "What's she doing now?" I asked Nik.

"Listening to Goodfellow tell her too much about our past adventures."

"That's a good way to put her back in a coma. She's not alarmed by you being there? Does she know why you're there?"

"She has been told and, surprisingly, understood. She assured she doesn't wish to harm, but never tried to convince me to leave. She actually seems calm in my presence, like she's used to it." He paused. I could hear him run a hand over his face. I knew because that was what he did when I frustrated him when he was running on empty. "She's disarmingly sweet, honestly, though it would better if she were rude of it meant she was more cooperative."

"I'll be there soon. You can take a nap and we'll see how uncooperative she is with me," I assured him. That ice hit the back of my neck this time, bringing the hairs on end. I spun and glared at the pedestrian that almost ran into me. It wasn't him, but someone was fucking following me.

"She doesn't seem particularly intimidated by your lineage."

"Loman told her?"

"He's talking too much, but short of ripping out his tongue, I don't know how to get him to stop."

"Duct tape and handcuffs. I'm sure he's got them lying around somewhere," I stopped, froze more accurately as I caught a glimpse of my stalker. He wanted me to see, tipped his baseball cap in my direction, then slipped down the alleyway out of sight. It wasn't the werewolf I'd seen walking through; it was the same Yankees hat and blue jacket, but no werewolf. My stalker's form was similar to my build, similar to my height, similar to my freakin' infernal genes.

"Cal?" Nike called to me over the line. "What's wrong?"

He was already gone; just a living postcard reminder that it was time for a check up. If he wanted to start something the humans milling about wouldn't have stopped him. No, he was just saying 'Hi, hello, I'm busy at the moment, but we'll pencil in that rematch soon'.

"Cal," Nik insisted.

I turned about face and continued to Goodfellow's. Refusing to show I cared. "Grimm is back."

"What?"

"It's nothing. Don't worry. He's just sent me the stalker equivalent of a text message. 'Still here, see you soon'."

"Do not get reckless."

I rolled my eyes at his big brother tone. "He's already gone, Cyrano. I'm fine."

"Stay on the phone with me."

I actually laughed at that. "You sound like a girl during the first week of dating."

"As you would know so well."

"So the little bird won't talk about what happened with the Auphe?" I asked. I didn't need a phone-in escort to get home, but considering all the shit I put my brother through I could give him this humoring assurance. "You think the Auphe took her for some reason? I can't imagine they get on too well with former angels."

"Would a peri survive Tumulus?"

He was thinking the same as me; if Goodfellow had been faked out, the Auphe could have dragged her to Tumulus for one reason or another and she suppressed the memories like I did with my visit to the mother land. Problem was she wasn't half-Auphe like me and it took a lot to bait and switch a trickster like Robin. "I doubt she'd survive. Plus there's that whole lack a heart thing that makes living more difficult."

I had to keep resisting the urge to look behind me. I couldn't sense Grimm anymore, but that didn't calm me down. I flipped off a Lexus that honked me as I jaywalked across the street.

"I've been researching other alternatives. Paien that might supplant themselves so deeply into their victims that they are no longer capable of recalling their previous form."

"Find anything like that?"

"No, the closest I've come are Changlings and they don't take on a new existing form, they replace one that didn't have the chance to exist. Ishiah and Robin have ruled out all the others I've found. Is he still following you?"

"Nope, and I'm at the apartment so chill." I pulled open the massive front door of the Soho brownstone and trudged up the stairs. "I'm not paying the 'no, you hang up first' game because I will hang up first, sweetheart."

"You're breaking my heart. Just hold on a second," Niko told me. He took the phone away from his ear to talk to Robin. When he came back on I could hear him shifting in movement, possibly putting on his coat. "Cal, Robin says he might know a healer in town visiting that can rush this along. Castiella's seems to be settling in to sleep, so she shouldn't give you trouble. How soon will you be here?"

"In two flights. Why are you going with him?"

"To talk. We need to know more about the true Castiella in order to catch this one in a lie." I heard Goodfellow voice his distaste for that comment, but I couldn't hear what he said.

I hung up the phone and managed to catch the door as they opened it. Nik didn't even look startled to see me make those two flights so fast. He did look confused by my anger though. "Do _not_ leave me with her."

"You'll be fine," Niko assured me and brushed my grip from his coat. "The computer is set up in the kitchen. You can use it for research or when you interrogate her, but please don't break it."

"Or her," Goodfellow chimed in.

"Nik." One second he was holding my hand because of Grimm the next he was leaving me alone with a zombie in the bedroom?

He held up his phone. "We won't be long. Call if your stalker comes back. Immediately."

"Nik!"

And just like that he was out the door, trench coat flipping dramatically around his ankles.

I pulled off my jacket, crumpled it up, and chucked it at the ground. This was bullshit. Little Caliban, the babysitter? I was fighting and ultimately killing an angel storm spirit combo a few weeks ago and now this? Fine, just fine. But if he expected me to kick up my feet on Robin's glass coffee table and watch action flicks the whole time he was sorely mistaken. I was getting some answers. This bird was either going to sing the truth or she was about to revisit memories of her supposed death. She knew what I was, so it was up to her if she wanted to _see_ what I was too.

I spun around to stomp to the bedroom, preparing my bad cop impression, but stopped short of a single step.

Niko had trained me from about my first steps on. How to flip a blade twenty five different ways, how to spot a twitch in an armed man's shoulder, and how to use all senses to recognized when someone was sneaking up on you. There were few that could manage to surprise me at any of those skills, least of all the latter since my sense of smell allowed me to pick the guy that had onions for breakfast out of a line up, blindfolded, from two blocks away.

Yet there she was. Standing in the middle of the living room, blocking my path to the couch if that had been my original intention. She didn't have a subtle scent either, but it almost filled my nose the moment I enter the apartment anyway so I chalked it up to excusable distraction. My hand still went to the gun under my arm and I lifted my eyebrows. She didn't need an overplayed movie reference to get the gist of that expression and she didn't seem to feel overly lucky.

She held a notebook against her chest. Robin's silk pants and matching button shirt sagged on her small frame. Even rolled up a few times, I couldn't see her feet. The sleeves nearly covered to her fingertips. The deep red color made her skin look as pale as a calla lily with just a hint of pink. At the motion of me reaching for my Glock, she pulled her full lower lip between her teeth. Her eyes held mind, rounded and pleading for me to stay my hand.

"You're up," I commented. Maybe she had ventured out of the room earlier, but the way Niko was talking she hadn't been coherent enough to sit up let alone be walking around. So had she been faking it for the bleeding hearts of the house or had Nik left that part out? "Feeling well enough to best me?" No matter what she was, or how good an actor, after the beating she'd taken from that building she wasn't up to par. Back on her feet, but still a frail little bird.

Her lower lip slid out from her bite and set into a pout. She was good. Every gesture was both innocent and sensual. It was pretty sly of her. Show her broken wing, limp a little, trill pathetically to make the fox think she was hurt and alone in the world only to fly away at the last second. Self-preservation at its finest. She picked a fucking adorable shell to highjack too and she was working that to all her favor.

"You think that's how to play me?" I snapped. Part of that anger was for myself, because her little act was working on more depraved lobes in my brain. I wouldn't fall for it though. Not like Robin; not on my knees praising sixteen deities for her arrival. The puck saw his best friend brought back to life, Niko saw a lost girl frightened and hurt, so I had to be the bad guy. I wasn't above being the bad guy.

"You figure, young guy, dark exterior…bingo, play the little angel of pleasure paradise and I fall before you just for a kiss? Not a chance, harpy."

Her expression changed. It wasn't quite dropping the act, her eyebrows were still pulled tight in that perpetual sadness kind of way and her mouth remained in a pout, which I was beginning to think was natural. I still hadn't expected her to roll those doe-eyes and throw a pen at me though. She had good aim. It smacked me flat across my wrist holding the gun. Then she flipped me her middle finger and walked over to the couch with a subtle limp. I snorted; now _that_ was more my type. "Giving up the good girl act?"

I walked over to her, careful to circle behind the couch. She didn't even flinch when I was behind her. I could see on the notebook she had written quiet a bit down, but when I craned my neck to read more than the first line, she pulled it back up to her chest. She was waiting for me to sit down. She didn't have to pat the cushion next to her for me to figure that out.

"You know your adopted uncle is the one that hired us," I told her. "My brother and I, we aren't known for interrogation. Our jobs are usually more…to the point." She turned her head to watch my progression around the arm of the couch, but she wasn't threatened by my implication. "Your own uncle thinks you're a phony. Makes you wonder if you picked the wrong face, hm?" I perched on the arm of the chair, laying my Glock across my thigh in a manner than would give me a headshot without even lifting it. It would burn my thigh too, but it was only a precaution. And it looked cool.

"Castiella is dead. There is no monster that can survive their heart being ripped out of their chest. So what are you? 'Cause I'm not buying into necromancy and, outside of the abilities of an all-powerful angel I killed three weeks ago, the undead are a farce." The way she watched me was strange. The lines in her mouth implied anger, but her eyes looked wet. It could have been painkillers glossing them over, but emotional pain seemed more the trigger.

I pushed on. "Ish tested you while you were out. Checked a couple of paien off the list. Most of those I could have told him you're not with one whiff. Unless you found a way to make sulfur or decay smell like fuckin' flowers." I gave her a tight smile. "You do smell good. I'll give you that." Like the earth and a bed of wildflowers thick with shadows; it was a scent that made my skin flush, which was another reason I kept my distance. "What are you? And what do you want with Robin?"

Her response was offering me the notebook. Apparently, she still couldn't talk, or she was just playing that up to make me feel she was weakened. Regardless, her expression had firmed up and she stubbornly shook the ruled paper at me. I took it. I'd only gotten the first line half of the header and the glimpse of a list when I looked over her shoulder. Now it was laid out before me and read: _Questions to be answered before I answer any questions_.

"Cute," I grumbled. "You think this is going work? You think I'm just going to play twenty questions with a mute?"

She crossed her arms over her chest and leaned back on the couch. She tried to hide the little wince at the motion, but it was obvious her right side was still giving her pain. That tended to happened when a building tore one side of you up with a two-by-four and plugged a few two inch rebar holes in you. She shouldn't have gone flying on clipped wings.

I sighed and glanced down at the first question. It was the current month, day, and year with a question mark at the end. I felt my brow furrow. Was this a joke? "Yes, that is the date."

Her eyes were trained on the coffee table now, only flickering up to me when I stopped there. I let off a groan; she wasn't going to let up. "All right, if I answer these questions," or at least the ones I felt like answering, "You're going to answer mine?"

"Yes," she replied. It was raspy and nearly a whisper, but it was her voice. I smirked. Well, played little bird, so she could sing. It was obvious she couldn't belt out a hit song at the top of her lungs, but I'd been right about her milking it. She was also giving me that knowledge as a show of trust. I slipped the Glock back into its holster in the same respect.

"Second question: _How old are you and Niko?"_ I snorted, met her gaze, and gave her a wink. "Well, sweetheart, I'm twenty-six, I like short walks through the park, killing things with smiley face grenades, and my favorite food is a chilidog." She smiled genuinely. It was like a blue filter had been cast over her expressions before. It actually caught me by surprise a little, made my pulse hitch and my words stumble as I tried to press on. "Nik, he, uh. He's twenty-eight. Two years older. He's the Highlander with a blade and eats…well the type of food my food eats for dinner."

And just like that the smile was gone; I doubted it was due to my brother's vegetarian-like habits. She went back to staring at the coffee table, those dark blond eyebrows wrinkling the bridge of her nose. After a moment, she took in a deep breath, dropped her hands to the couch, and stood. I stiffened, but she only motioned that she was getting something to drink, and then pointed at me with a lift of those previously twisted eyebrows.

"Sure. A beer if he's got it." No one said the babysitter couldn't raid the fridge. In fact, Goodfellow should have expected it.

I leaned back to watch her wander into the kitchen. It was a shame Goodfellow's clothes were so big on her, because it looked like she was hiding a cute ass under all that fabric, but I also doubted she would have found any of the female clothing the puck might have lying around his apartment appropriate. "Hey, what am I supposed to call you anyway? The feminine pronouns are getting a little repetitive in my head."

She didn't answer me. I could hear her moving around in the kitchen, saw her shadow flickering against the far wall, but I doubted her throat had healed enough for her voice to carry. When she returned she offered me the requested beer (an imported stout it looked like) and held a glass of milk in her other hand. A nice touch for her angel angle.

"Cassie," she told me in the same strained whisper. She was holding true to her identity, but at least she gave me a nickname. She wasn't Castiella; sure as hell. Not unless Robin got the whole heart-ripped-out-in-front-of-him part of the story wrong.

"Have it your way. I can think up something to call you, if you don't want to be honest." She tapped a finger to the notebook to remind me when she would be honest. She was standing beside me, casual as ever. It was enough to make a man drop his guard; her scent, her doll-like face, her relaxed posture…she wasn't threatened by me so I shouldn't be threatened by her. I wasn't falling for it. "Sit down."

Cassie, eh sure, Cassie seemed startled by the demand or maybe my tone. Either way, she obeyed without much more than a frown. Curious. The next question was a reiteration of how the real Castiella die, only her version was a lot shorter and blunter; like the Cliff Notes – I would have preferred that over the epic drama Goodfellow went on and on about last night. "That is pretty much what happened. Auphe, living autopsy…though I'm interested in why they were after you."

She sipped at her milk, refusing to respond. The questions went on to the next page, but to be fair there were only three so far and she seemed to be writing with her non-dominant left hand since her right was still wrapped up. It was legible, but barely and in huge print to compensate. No one ever taught Cassie how to stay between the lines apparently. I flipped the page and found myself staring at a poorly drawn table of names. Question four asked me to indicate which names meant something to me and if so, what? It was a two-parter, but that wasn't what made me suddenly feel sick to my stomach. I dropped the notebook on the couch, stood from my perch on the arm, and pulled out the gun. The first row, just the first row of names, was all it took.

"What the fuck are you?" I snarled. She held the milk between her palms, rested on her thighs. Her shoulders rounded forward in the first glimpse of fear. She better. I'd pull the trigger if she didn't answer me pretty damned quickly. "How the fuck do you know those names? I'm not playing anymore, Cassie."

_Clarion, Georgina, Darkling_. That was just the first row. That was a part of my life that she shouldn't know. Hell, even Robin didn't know about Clarion. I doubted Niko ever told him the name of the town our mother was incinerated outside of the night the Auphe almost got me. The night we were free to run from…fuck, everything. Niko had said Goodfellow was running his mouth about us, but I doubted he covered those personal things, no matter how close he had been with Castiella. He wouldn't strain our trust like that. "How do you know? Are you seerer?"

She shook her head. "Please. Answer."

"You're holding on to that, aren't you? What does it matter how I answer that? If I say I don't know them does that mean your mouth suddenly zips shut again? Or is that if I say I do?"

"Please."

I felt my anger rising, my strained control lifting the hairs on the back of my neck. No, it wasn't Caliban; it was me. My rage caused the tension in my hand, not the Auphe inside. My control was in place in that aspect, but unfortunately there was still enough human emotion in me for overreaction. I didn't know what she was. I didn't know how she knew those names, if she sucked them out of my brain or if she had bugged my freakin' apartment for the past five years, but I knew I couldn't sink a bullet into her without answering to my brother and Goodfellow and neither of them would think this was a good enough reason to kill her. Interrogate and threaten, sure, which meant the gun stayed out and aimed right against her temple.

She didn't try to stop me. She actually closed her eyes as if awaiting the execution. "_Clarion_ is the town my mother died in. A bunch of Auphe came a-knocking to collect their investment and it didn't go well. She died and I was dragged off. If you don't want to mess with the Auphe you certainly don't want to mess with the bastard that got away from them."

Her eyes opened and she stared at me from those round corners. "How?"

"Nope, you don't get to know that." Hell, I didn't even really know how and I wasn't willing to dig deep into those well-guarded memories of Tumulus to find out. "Not on the list."

I tossed said list into her lap. "_Darkling_ possessed me when I was nineteen he tried to destroy everything I had. He tried to kill _Georgina_ while wearing my face and he didn't even have the balls to do it himself. Now she's off somewhere far, far from me as it should be. Is that enough, or do you want more?" I grabbed the notebook from where I'd deposited it in her lap, scanning the other names. "_Tumulus_ is the Auphe world. _Sawney_ is some Red Cap we killed, same with _Wahanakt_, _Cerberus_, _Ammut_ – all killed by me, you want to be next or are you ready to explain yourself?"

And then the door opened. Fuck.


	7. Chapter 7 - Cal

CHAPTER SEVEN

ƆȺȽ

"Cal! What are you doing?" Niko shouted the moment he took in the scene from just inside the doorway. That was a quicker turn around than I expected, but since Goodfellow was a pace behind my brother, shoving Nik aside to get to his precious fake friend, they obviously made no progress finding the healer. A shopping bag dropped from the Goodfellow's hand, spilling high-end clothing he would probably never let touch a pristine floor on any other day.

"Caliban, don't you dare," the puck demanded. I saw something in his green eyes I hadn't seen since the first time we met at his dealership. The time he figured out what I was; the only time he seriously wanted to kill me. Of course now that he'd told us about Nik and my cycling retries maybe it was more devastation that he would have to kill a soul he'd so often cared for.

"She's not Cassie, Loman," I growled. She stayed still on the couch. Her knees were pressed together, her hand clenching the milk glass, and her mahogany eyes fixed on the black screen of the television. My beer was glug-glugging dark stout all over Goodfellow's white rug, but knowing him it had to be cleaned often enough a little beer wouldn't make a difference.

I tossed the notebook at Niko as he came abreast to Goodfellow. Either of them could disarm me and knock me out easily, but neither of them was sure of my stability, which meant they weren't sure if I would kill her before they made it across the space between us. They'd both seen pop a paien like a balloon with one of my gates. I had no reservations about splitting this little bird open either, if I even could after Jack fried my brain.

"How much did you tell her, Goodfellow? Did you tell her about Darkling and George?"

"Of course not! I only told her what she would need to know to trust you and Niko. And maybe a few of the more amusing tales, but that is beside the point. Put the gun down!"

"Explain," I snapped at Cassie. "Tell me how you know all that? How you know about Promise and the Calabassa? Catcher and Rafferty. Nevah's Landing?" Shit, she even knew about Nevah's Landing?

Her jaw seemed wired shut, but she was playing it up with the welling of tears. She wasn't going to talk until her game was done, huh? I let off a visceral snarl, pressing the gun hard against her temple. "I know all of them, all right? Every name on the list except for three: _Josh, Dante and Connor._ And that's the last question!" I had no idea if it was. If there were more it didn't matter. "Now you answer mine."

"Caliban, drop the gun right now before I make it so you can't hold it or your own unsubstantial appendage you have the audacity of calling a dick for a month." Goodfellow had ghosted up behind me, while Niko distracted with the rustling of pages. I'd thought they were both looking through the notebook, silly me. There was a pocket knife with a handle encased in marble against my wrist on the underside. At the moment, it was the cool flat of the blade against my skin, but I knew the puck would cut the tendons if I didn't concede. Just as I knew he would let Niko stitch me up as quickly as possible if he cut the artery in the process.

"Listen to me, Loman." I lifted my finger from the trigger, but kept the gun pressed to her temple. "She's not your girl. How does she know all that stuff about us? About me? This is a trap."

"Why would she show you this?" Niko asked. He rested the notebook on the opposite arm of the couch. "What does this get her? A bullet in the head? I doubt that's what she wants. She was taking a chance showing you this, asking you this. Hence the demand for you to answer all her questions before she revealed her own secrets."

"What are you saying?" I seriously had no idea and usually I was pretty good at deciphering my brother's lectures.

"Let her go. Let her explain without a barrel down her throat." He was rattled. Niko tried to hide it, but he couldn't from me. He didn't just fear what I would do to her. He was disquieted by her knowledge, but unlike me who just wanted to kill the villain, he wanted to know how she did it. And this time, I would give him that.

I was curious too. The jumble of names was just that. Like a fake psychic asking you a bunch of questions until one clicked. Except, Cassie had been straightforward about it, put it down in black and white and almost all of them clicked. But which ones meant something? The names were so scattered; some were flashes in the pan, a job or a contact we didn't even use anymore like Samuel and Mickey, and some…were milestones and tragedies. I didn't even think she knew which was which.

I withdrew the gun, but didn't tuck it away. I let Goodfellow drop down in front of the imposter. He took the glass of milk and put it on the coffee table behind him, then ran his hands through her dark blond hair – even in this light it shown like autumn leaves just before a snowfall. Nature was a beautiful bitch creating a monster with a face like that. "Cassie…I don't understand. How _do _you know those things?"

"I'm not your Cassie," she whispered. Her eyes were still wet, her lower lip trembled just a fraction. "I'm sorry, Robbie…she's dead."

And there was the rub. I wasn't naïve enough to think this wasn't still all part of the little bird's game. She was a good little actor, amazing actually, but none of her actions made sense. Nik was right to question her motives. Because let us put this into perspective, shall we?

This girl shows up with the face of a Goodfellow's most beloved friend, which was an innocent face to begin with, vulnerable and broken. Pleading for help like a simpering puppy. Pleading with the face of a peri long since dead. Now she was spouting off all this fortune teller garble. Giving me information even a private detective wouldn't be able to dig up. Why? If she knew us that intimately why would she reveal something she knew would shatter any trust we had in her Virgin Mary act? What leverage did she still have? Or had she anticipated the shock would distract enough that her attack wouldn't be seen?

I stepped back from the couch and lifted my Glock again.

"Cal," Niko warned, but sorry big brother I wasn't about to let the viper strike.

"What do you want?" I snarled. Goodfellow pulled up onto the couch, shielding the now self-proclaimed imposter. His green eyes were darkened by emotion uncharacteristic to his usual whimsy. Again, he was ready to take me out. Maybe at this point he didn't want to kill me, but I could tell he wasn't above punching me in the face until I started choking on the blood of my broken nose. He wasn't giving up this ghost. "Robin, I will gate around you until I get a clear shot. It's for your own good."

"After what Pyriel did to you? I'd like to see you try," Goodfellow argued, calling my bluff. "Caliban, there are two possibilities here. If she isn't Castiella she would have attempted to kill me while I was alone with her and failed. If she is Castiella, and she wanted me dead –a concept she would never entertain– she would have succeeded. Either way you would have been cleaning up a body this morning," the puck countered, which was a startling confession. Either this little bird was a lot more lethal than he'd previously let on or he was finally admitting that those rose colored glasses he was wearing would have been the death of him if she betrayed.

"She just told you that she _wasn't_ Castiella."

"Put down the gun. She's cooperating. She's trying to explain. If she meant to harm, I assure you, we would all be swept up to Vahalla in a breath."

I felt my eyebrows lift. A lot more lethal then. Her fingers wrapped around Robin's arm that stretched over her legs. Lethal, but not wanting to elicit a fight. She was asking for Goodfellow to calm himself. With her other hand she motioned for Niko to pass her the notebook. My brother hesitated, for caution of her as well as for what I might do. She received the notebook though, even if Nik's gray eyes trained on me. Apparently, I was the loose canon.

We had an unknown element that Goodfellow claimed could kill us faster than we could blink and _I_ was the one that needed to be monitored.

The fake little peri flipped to the back of the wired pad, about ten pages from the end, and handed it to her 'friend'. There was writing all over those pages. Her answers. She'd given them to me without any fear that I would peek early. What would she have done if I had? Try to stop me or just let me read? Did she even plan any of this or was she as lost in this plot as we were? I was beginning to think she was flying by the seat of Robin's silk pants.

Goodfellow ignored the gun, finally, trusting I wouldn't shoot him. I had a clear shot through his shoulder that would nail the girl in the throat, but I wouldn't take it…yet. Her tortured glance up at me made it clear she knew better than the others what I was prepared to do. "Care to tell us a story, Loman?"

"It is a cruelly drawn diagram depicting Tumulus as a different dimension." The girl smacked him on his shoulder for the insult. It was as natural a knee-jerk reaction as Niko's swats to the back of my head. More than her words, written or otherwise, that made me pause. If she wasn't Castiella, she was something that knew both Robin and the best friend he thought she was exceptionally well, which made her all the more dangerous.

Robin was undeterred by the slap, in fact he regarded it the same way he did when I tried to defend myself or my bad choices –with an even tone that dripped with egotism since he knew better and he knew all. Cue eye roll. "Cas, you're amazing at countless things, brilliant and amazing, but your artistic skills and penmanship have always been more questionable than the symbolism behind Stonehenge. Be that as it may, this isn't a far-fetched idea." He pointed at the little circles that were all over the page in varying sizes. It reminded me of a kid's drawing of the planets; pretty sure I drew something like that in elementary school. "But what are these? And why do they look like abacus beads on a bent line?"

She continued to frown and motioned to the notes again. Goodfellow cupped the side of her face instead, caressing her cheek softly with an equally sickening smile. "How can you not be her? Every action, every expression…" She pawed at the notebook, forcing him to change the page. He sighed, dropped his hand to his own lap, and got on with reading instead of reminiscing. "Right then, if I can translated the Rosetta stone I suppose I could try my hand at this scrawl. _'If this is read then one of the following has occurred: Cal was an impatient prat and stole the notebook from me probably at gun point'_."

I glared at the obvious pause and pointed looks in my direction. The Glock was pointed at the ground, even if I hadn't relinquished it to the holster that was better than nothing. "I didn't," I defended. "She gave it to me actually and I didn't even skip ahead…although it was eventually at gunpoint."

"'_Or due to the answers I received I've determined that this isn't the past of my own timeline, but a parallel universe'…_" Goodfellow's words slowed drastically as he reached the end of the sentence. Then his self-boasted handsome face contorted into that expression I got from Niko nearly once every day. The one that questioned both my sanity and my intelligence in the same moment. Now all eyes were trained on the imposter. At least, I wasn't alone in thinking this little bird was crazy.

"A parallel universe," I echoed. It was best I do so; let them hear what the loony person had to say. Listen to her 'explanation'.

"Cas—" Robin started, cringing. He knew it too. She didn't wait for him to question her stability, but smacked her hand against the ruled paper with a petulant expression.

"Read," she demanded. The word ripped through her throat and a manner that even sounded painful. She swallowed a couple of time to try and sooth it, but it still brought tears. Goodfellow picked up the discarded milk glass and offered it to her in apology. She accepted it, took a drink, then motion for him to read on.

He eventually did. Goodfellow read aloud her delusions that didn't sound as insane the longer he spoke. She wrote about what happened with Darkling, details that no one but those there would know about. The speakers Darkling used to amplify his voice to open the void to the beginning of time, the speakers that Robin and Niko emerged from to stop me from unmaking the humans. She wrote that the humans had evolved those concepts to use them in their own experiments. That Samuel, George's uncle, had been an unwitting pawn in giving them this knowledge. That the humans used what he knew to create a huge amplifier in the form of an entire metal room. And Grimm was at the center…yeah, that half-cocked bastard was in her world too, but he seemed to be even more a villain there.

"'_The Vigil was naïve enough to believe they could collar Grimm and he betrayed them'_," Goodfellow read on. He flipped the next page like he was reading a summer novel he couldn't put down. As novels went it wasn't very good; choppy with little detail. "_They let Grimm lead the first expedition. An attempt to travel five years into the past as a test out their experiment. He dragged me with him. He killed the human handlers, everyone in the dome, and made the leap. He intended to start his rule early in the past. It didn't work right. Instead of the past we are in another realm. Like Tumulus, a realm separate from ours, a path that could have been taken, a split from the moment we choose differently'_."

We all stayed silent for a moment or two, contemplating the philosophical poetics of it all. It explained why she was here when she was supposed to be dead, it explained how she knew all those names, but the rest sounded more plausible in a sci-fi movie. A pretty awesome sci-fi movie. "I hate to be the wet blanket, but it all seems like a crock without proof. You have a piece of this amp-cage? Proof that the Vigil has leapt from little peons cleaning up the messes of the paien to mad scientists trying to make their own personal version of the Tardis?"

Even fake Cassie gave me a look of skepticism at that reference. "What? There was a marathon on last week, I was laid up and bored."

She sighed and tapped the metal snake implanted into her neck. Robin brushed back her long hair to touch his fingers to the module. "The Vigil did this?" She nodded.

"So she says," I countered. "That's not proof. Not proof that she's a Slider, at least." I flopped down into the arm chair that matched the couch. "This is insane." Cassie had nothing to say to that. Her lips pressed together as she searched for something else in her mental filing cabinet of ridiculous lies.

Robin flipped through the pages again as Cassie sipped at her milk in silence. Technically, she'd answered my questions. What was she? Castiella from a different world similar to ours. What did she want? Well, that wasn't mentioned, but it was safe to say she probably just wanted to go home. She didn't want to say anything until she figured all this out because…hell, if it had been the past she would be in danger of changing it by just us seeing her.

Niko turned away from us, walking into the kitchen to pick up the laptop he had left there. He brought it to Cassie and sat down on the couch next to her; closer than I would have trusted and close enough that he could keep the laptop on his lap and allow her to type on it. "We're going to need to know more, but it's obvious your voice might not be able to keep up. Do you have these in your world? Do you know how to use one?" She gave him a slightly annoyed and dubious glare.

"I doubt there is that much difference in the worlds, Niko," Goodfellow provided. "Considering the device embedded in her spine and the fact that she's saying the humans were able to construct a room to traverse separate planes of existence, I'm sure she knows how to use technology that was derived from mechanics used since the 1800's, farther back if you would consider telegraphs and Morse Code." She twisted her arm around to clamp her hand lightly over the puck's mouth. I chuckled; I liked how she could get away with that and wished I could on more than one occasion in the past.

She nodded to Niko, trading the milk for the laptop and set it on her thighs. She gave another short nod to signal she was ready.

Niko fired the first question. "How do you know this is a parallel universe?"

And away she typed, favoring her right hand. Niko and Goodfellow leaned in to watch her progress and I dropped my head back on the chair's cushion. I didn't feel like getting up, but it looked like I would have too. I also didn't like my brother being that close to the vixen.

I hauled my ass up off my seat, even as Nik started reading off her typing for my benefit. "_'The years is the same, but current events are not. There are things much too similar to be coincidence. Your lives are not much different than your lives in my world and oddly enough it seems things have shifted in different directions five years ago. Like a fork in the road split us into two worlds. Some differences are subtle and some are rather profound_'."

"Like what?" I pressed. The Glock was still in my hand and I wasn't going to relinquish the weapon. Goodfellow was the one eyeing me as I paced behind the couch, tracking me like a sniper on a hill. I was fairly certain that if I lifted the gun again, I would be seeing stars from my back before I could even think about gating. Niko was pointedly ignoring me, as if to chide me with the silent treatment for my paranoia when I was the only one acting logically in this mess.

"'_I'm not dead for one_,'" Niko read off. I had to snort at that. Monster prowling in for the kill or someone in need of a straitjacket, I was beginning to like her wit. Nik made a soft grunting sound before he went on; it was the sound of a guy hesitating in telling his little brother the goldfish they got at the local carnival died within twenty-four hours.

"Nik," I prompted.

Cassie hasn't stopped typing during his faltering. Thankfully, Goodfellow decided to stop glowering at me long enough to pick up the slack. "_'I don't want to say much more. Although this isn't a timeline that would effect the future of my world, I don't feel it right to influence your choices in this world or create regret needlessly by reciting things already past'_."

"Meaning that's all we get?" I grunted. Her head bowed either in deliberation or in attempts to dig up the best lie out of her bag of tricks. I leaned over her from behind. Her shoulders didn't even reach the tops of the cushions, so my gun hovered over the gap between her and Robin, the latter of whom eyed me with venom. I wasn't aiming it, so he just needed to calm down. "Listen, little bird. An insanity plea is looking really good for you right now, but if you're looking for help you're going to have to do better than 'I know this is a parallel universe because I'm alive'."

She turned her face to the side, eyes flickering from the gun to me, where she gave a terse frown. Obviously, she was telling me to put my weapon away too. "Not a chance."

Fake Cassie took in a deep breath through her nose and leaned forward to put the laptop on the glass table in front of her. Seriously? She was refusing to talk because I had a weapon out for self-defense. I knew I didn't look like much, but did I really have to shoot out a kneecap to get respect?

"This isn't a negotiation," I snapped. "That crap you just spun is just pretty words strung together for your convenience."

"Cal—"

"No," I cut my brother off and shoved the muzzle of the silencer against her thigh. Robin grabbed at my wrist, but didn't break it as I suspected he might and was prepared to evade. I leaned in close to fake Cassie's thrumming pulse, her scent was a perfume that I probably wouldn't be able to get out of my head for days, but I didn't let it distract me. Too much…it drew me a little too close to her ear when I hissed at her, but I couldn't help it. Caliban was choking on his the short leash, straining to bite at the pale skin and tender scars on her throat. "You know what I am. The fact that you are still alive is the only courtesy I give you. I am Auphe, I don't compromise."

Goodfellow let go of my wrist, then he got up from the couch. I spared him a flash of a glance from the corner of my eye, but all he did was stand back and cross his arms over his chest. He even motioned for Niko to get up. A command my brother ignored. I couldn't tell what the puck was doing other than giving us space. He didn't seem to be on my side, so maybe he was just waiting for this lethal flower to strike. Whatever, she could do her worse.

"You're male," she hissed in return, tilting her face so we were nearly in a lip lock. Her breath was warm over my cheek. Caliban was like a lion rocking back on his haunches. Damn, did he want to tear into her…

"What difference does that make?"

"Female Auphe are dominant," Fake Cassie explained. I saw something flicker in her eyes, a snap of fire in that mahogany brown. Flint catching on a lighter. Then everything blurred as she cuffed the side of my head hard. I pulled the trigger, but her thigh had slipped out of range loosing the bullet into Goodfellow's couch with a soft thuwmp. I don't know how she fucking did it…she was faster than any peri at the bar and she had me upside down on the couch like a tortoise on his back in a second. My legs kicked to find purchase over the back while my throat was crushed between that thigh (and the split still braced around it) and the seat cushion. She also had my gun arm twisted around and aimed at Niko, which meant my finger had slipped away from the trigger. I'd tried to gated the moment her skin touched mine, but Jack's electro-shock still had me more than off my game.

"The fuck?" I choked, then promptly stopped struggling. Her full lips were set in a flat line, creases around the edges firm; a look of disappointment. It was her eyes that had my blood run cold though. Niko had a short blade at her healing throat, but with those eyes she didn't even give a shit. They were the eyes of the monsters that haunted me, only a little more 'human'; stark red irises and a pinprick of black pupil. Female Auphe are dominant, she'd said…shit.

"Right, I suppose I forgot to mention that," Goodfellow muttered from somewhere above me. "Castiella is half Auphe, the first experiment, in fact. First successful one, at least and not an experiment of the Auphe's design. She's the child of a creature more insane than the gods. Hence, why I warned you: if she wanted us dead, there would be no prayer to save us."

That, dear puck, was not the thing to say.

At the sight of those eyes I was like a puppet on strings or an animal finally giving in to instinct. First thing first, regain the use of my lung capacity. My fingers clamped around the Ka-bar slung on my belt and I drove it through the flesh at the weakest point on her side. The stitches and scar tissue gave way as if inviting the matte steel in. Her eyes widened, mouth agape with pain I knew all too well. The scent of her blood enticed as it slipped over my hand. Caliban was ready to play.

A gate came without forcing, without even reaching for it, so easily it didn't even feel like my own doing. I wrapped it around the both of us and dumped us onto the grass behind the street-meat wagon that served the best chilidogs around. It was empty and locked down at this time of night, but it was what was behind the cart that I was going for. Battery park. A bigger arena and one where no one would get torn apart from the battle that was about to take place.

_Where no one would interrupt the fun._

I shoved the knife in deeper, felt the serrated edge saw against her ribs with a click, click, click. I was on top of her, one arm pressing her face against the ground –still holding the gun– while the other twisted the Ka-bar.

_Auphe, all Auphe needed to be dead. Their blood spilled to herald my own life_. That was what it came down too.

A small cry wavered from her lips, almost forming my name in a plea. "Fuck you and your dominance," I countered.

Her hand thumped against my shoulder, the heel of her palm shoving my collarbone to relieve some of the pressure of my forearm to her skull. Her nails dug deeply enough that I could almost feel it through my shirt. Then there was a bone scraping sound that didn't come from my blade in her side. I felt the agony blaze along my shoulder straight to my fingertips a moment later. I was only given enough time to glance at the source, see the black talons piercing through my shoulder, and then she took advantage of my distraction. She punched me with her free hand, hard enough my vision flashed white, and she threw me aside with the other –once she wrenched those claws out of me.

I rolled with the motion, got on my knees, and raised the Glock. I had to squint to get her in focus before she attacked again, which proved to be difficult with my brain sloshing around from her decking me. I was going to have a welt on my temple for that one.

She was crouched on the grass, a second away from pouncing. She didn't act and it wasn't the gun keeping her at bay. She wasn't even looking at it, crawling a touch further from me. She was retreating?

She wrenched at the Ka-bar in her side –failed the first time. Considering the copious amount of blood gushing from the wound it was probably difficult to get a good grip on it. When she managed to get it out, she just tossed it to the dirt, like throwing in a towel. Even if she was crouched in preparation, she had one knee down in fatigue. I wasn't stupid enough to think that she was down for the count though. No Auphe gave up that easily. It didn't matter anyway; if she didn't want to play that just meant the game was over.

I'd seen Grimm out-gate a bullet, let's see if she could too. I aimed between the eyes (since I had not idea where this hybrid bitch's heart was) and pulled the trigger. It resisted with the safety lock on. What the fuck – I never put the safety on. The only time she was anywhere near the gun was when it was pointed at Nik. Why would she lock it when using that as a means to make me submit?

"What the hell is your ploy?"

Fake Cassie held up a hand in truce. It was covered in a mix of our blood, but the talons were gone. Maybe they were magical like her peri wings and could disappear into her body. Whatever, didn't care. I flipped off the safety and resumed targeting. "Sorry, sweetheart, but I've had my fill of hot crazy chicks trying to take me out. You attacked first," I told her, reminding her she only had herself to blame. Caliban was whining for more playtime, part of me wanted to lower the weapon and tackle her swinging, see how much more fight she had in her, how much more intoxicating her scent could become, but she sincerely didn't seem up for it. So much for a female's dominance. "Any last whimpers?"

There was a gate behind me, which I expected because, as I said, Auphe didn't give up that easy. What I didn't expect was a silver Beretta nuzzling my forehead when I turned, while my Glock had swung low anticipating Fake Cassie's small form to come through. At best, if I fired I would take off some pectoral muscle of a man equal in height to me. I bared my teeth at him in irritation. He always picked the worst times to pester.


	8. Chapter 8 - Cal

CHAPTER EIGHT

ƆȺȽ

I seethed at the monster standing in front of me. My stalker from before finally showing himself on the playing field. "Grimm, fuck off. I'm in the middle—"

The fucker shot the gun! I saw the barest of twitches in his finger leaving me a fraction of a second to duck and roll before my brain splattered all over the grass between Fake Cassie and me. He fired again as I sprinted low and slammed my back against a near by tree for cover. "Grimm, what the hell? At least, silence that shit!"

Fighting with me was one thing and long overdue after our last showdown in Fort Tilden, but being stupid about fighting with me was...well, stupid. A gun without a silencer caught the attention of people, even if this was New York. That often brought cops and I knew his weapon was about as legal as the cache I had under my bed. Granted, Grimm never really had much consideration for human covers and a troop of officers would just be like tossing a bored cat into a box of mice.

"Playtime's over, Caliban. Run home to your brother and I'll take her from here." The replaced pronoun wasn't lost on me in that turn of phrase. He was talking about Cassie, whom he shouldn't even know about.

I peered around the tree. Grimm was stalking sideways, crossing one foot in front of the other, keeping both me and the little broken bird in sight. I'd done some serious damage reopening her wound, because she was having trouble even dragging her body away from Grimm. She was whimpering too, just like the frightened puppy act from before. Part of me just wanted to let him deal with her, but something was wrong. For one, I wasn't sure if this was an act anymore. I wasn't sure the little bird would be able to hop up and fly away before the albino crocodile closed in.

Grimm looked...off. His hair was nearly buzzed to his head, revealing some nasty scars that sliced over the curve of his skull to his cheekbone. I hadn't remembered that being there, but last time we were face to face there were bullets, explosions, all sorts of shit that could have caused those wounds. One thick scar resembled the burn of a bullet so close to taking out a lobe. I would happily take the credit for that one and hoped he'd gotten it when I fired full-clip at his final gate last time.

The hair cut was new too; he'd apparently given up that whole yin-yang, physical-opposite ploy. His beady eyes were the same vivid red, features contorted into the same unruly sneer, that ungodly amount of hypodermic needles remained like a curtain over his real teeth. But he had a new accessory. A thick metal collar clamped around his neck like a prisoner on a sci-fi movie and it didn't seem like a fashion choice of his own volition.

"Grimm, thought you had a score to settle with _me_?"

"Don't you worry your pretty head about it. I'll come back and explain...with relish, once I get our little queen settled." Something told me his version of explaining would involve more near death experiences. I also didn't like the way he said 'our little queen'. It sounded perverted, like a pedophile calling his victim a princess.

I re-gripped my Glock, pressing my shoulder blades against the tree truck and readying to launch an attack. He was almost to Cassie; the pathetic girl had stopped army-crawling away from him and just lied on the grass curled over. Something in me did _not_ want him near her. Grimm was doing some pretty fucked up things to those succubae. Even if I hadn't seen Grimm, the bae were still popping up from time to time. So he obviously still had that hair-brained scheme that he was going to make an army of bionic-Auphe to take the empty throne. The bae weren't up to par, no matter how much faith he had in them growing up Auphe.

I'd be damned if the perfect breeder wasn't bleeding like a stuck pig right in front of him…that was what he wanted Cassie for.

I cracked a shot at him running. I aimed at his head on the off chance that he wouldn't gate away, but it whizzed through blank air as I thought it would and Grimm gated directly in front of me. That was fine, I wanted him away from Cassie and I got my wish. I pivoted around him and planted my Glock in his gut, because I _knew_ where Grimm held his heart. "Back off."

"You were ready to kill her a second ago. Let me take care of that for you," Grimm offered, leaning into my personal space in response. Those needles over his teeth receded into his gum-line as easily as a hatchback lifting. He looked no more human without them. Even without the dental tribute he still held a family resemblance; that death wish in his eyes, the wrinkles around his nose from a permanent growl.

If he still had that length to his hair it would have been a disturbing likeness to the monster I battled before. I felt my chest tighten as something that should have dawned on me the moment I saw him hit home. "You're not him…"

His eyes narrowed, then he rolled them with a groan. "Oh little brother—" He lunged forward before finishing, grabbed the barrel of my Glock, and shoved it away. The bullet bit at his jacket off to the side. He tried to plow me over, but only clipped my shoulder when Cassie's small hands had grabbed my hips and yanked me down. I caught the ground with my hand before my face and flipped back onto my feet, but before I could follow through with any other action I got to see exactly what Goodfellow had been warning me about.

Castiella was lethal. She hadn't been fighting me in the loft. Not. At. All.

While I had stabbed her and aimed to kill, she had been pulling punches; only attempting to teach my sass mouth a lesson and later protect herself from my attempts to murder her. And then without a thought, she shielded me from the bastard that was obviously gunning for her. She tripped, curled, and rolled on the grass as she led him away from me. He didn't wait, stalking after her with his firearm aimed at me.

When Grimm touched her, when his foot nudged her thigh and his arm extended to grab her, I saw what a female half-Auphe could truly do. Her body moved with the grace of a ninja dancer. Like those martial arts movies where the actors were in harnesses and on wires, only she didn't have either and the film wasn't slowed down so you could take it all in. I felt my mouth part in a gape, eyes trying to focus as she scissored him to the ground with her legs around his neck, flipped, turned, cracked his jaw with her heel, whipped around to backhand him the other way. It was beautiful, thrilling, a fucking turn on if there ever was one.

He was trying to gate. I could feel them like little pops from firework duds, or like a car engine refusing to turn over. Something was stopping him, and I didn't think it was Cassie. He jolted after every attempt to rip into the veil. The light on that hunk of metal around his neck blinked red like a dog's electric collar when it reached the line. It was a shock collar for gates.

And that device on Cassie's neck…it was sparking like a faulty wire, singing her hair, but still doing its job. A job I just then figured out.

She was fighting for her life with me, and maybe her chastity against Grimm, but she had yet to open a gate. She _couldn't_ gate. Just like Grimm couldn't in close vicinity to her. He had gated behind me, but I was at least ten feet from Cassie.

I swallowed hard. This wasn't the Grimm that double teamed me and Niko with a Rom construct that we couldn't shut off. This wasn't the Grimm that I fought with in this very park with a brick of C4 and a few dozen grenades. This was Cassie's Grimm. This was a douchebag half-Auphe from another world and the collar he wore was made for a particular purpose. Not to stop him from gating, but to stop him from gating around another already gate-spayed.

Someone had rigged this game so the playing field was even when they fought. Someone knew they would fight and that someone knew Grimm wouldn't be able to resist coming in close enough for that ground to level. Well, relatively level. Cassie seemed to have a bit more battle skill than him, but considering how long she was Goodfellow's friend she had a hell of a lot more than a few centuries of experience.

Grimm had lost half of those needles in his mouth and his right arm was spurting blood whenever he tried to move it since she had nearly sliced the limb off. But he got her. He got her because of me. He got her in the side where I'd planted the Ka-bar earlier and Cassie doubled over at the pain. He didn't use a knife, those were his fingers digging in and he lifted her up that way. I cringed when he used her ribs as a handle bar from the inside. He tossed her to the ground. She made no effort to soften her fall.

Grimm's right side was swathed in red from the hacked arm, cut up in so many places and bruised in the rest, but he wasn't letting up. He still had one good arm after all. He was a demon refusing to give up the soul he claimed his. He kicked her in the head twice, before pressing her onto her back, panting in exertion and fatigue. "The drugs wore off it seems. Can't have that."

He dropped to his knees, straddling her. Her legs kicked under him, her body bucked. I tasted blood in my mouth and realized I'd bitten the inside. I'd seen stuff like this on Law & Order: SVU and I didn't want to be any part of it. With both hands on the Glock for better aim, I stopped idly standing by and stepped up to the plate like a big boy. "Grimm. Leave her alone."

He ignored me and slammed his fist into her uninjured side. Her talons reappeared to try and slice him into meaty bits, but that firm punch to her side hadn't been for nothing. He had a needle in his hand, I saw it when he tossed the syringe aside, and whatever he had plunged into her veins took effect quickly. The black claws slid over his shirt, creating only a tear and a thin line of red under the fabric. Her head lolled back, exposing her pale throat and stretching the scars on her jaw. Grimm tilted his head to mimic the release of her muscles, grinning down at her. His expression was almost euphoric, which was plenty disgusting enough to have me swallow back bile.

"Caliban, I told you. I will deal with you later. Unless," he lifted his chin to meet my fixed gaze head on. "Unless in this world you can see the bigger picture."

He didn't even seem fazed that I had a clear shot of his head, aiming right at the intersection of two sets of claw marks on his head. One was the old scars I saw before, joined by a new set to match almost identically. This wasn't the first time he'd fought Cassie and if I hadn't roughed her up, if she hadn't been de-gated...she would have had a chance. Hell, she might have been able to kill the bastard.

Now though, she was completely vulnerable under him because of those drugs, unmoving save for blinking, swallowing, and shaking from head to toe. Considering it was rage in her gold-touched mahogany eyes, I assumed this wasn't the first time he'd gotten the upper hand. Shit, how much of an upper hand had he gotten? I set my jaw and steadied my hand. I couldn't let thoughts like that cloud my judgment.

_Queen, he said. He deserves no queen._ She'd pissed me off, brought out the asshole in me, but even Caliban inside was unhappy with handing her over to Grimm.

Shooting at Grimm would only lead to more gate hoping. An infinite frolic that would only end when I ran out of bullets, because I sure as hell couldn't gate like him right now. At least, that was how it would have played out with our Grimm. I didn't know this one. I'd never fought this one, but compared to the Grimm I knew…I might have been dealing with an even truer Auphe here.

I had gated to a place several subway stops from Goodfellow's apartment, but even then it would only take fifteen minutes for them to find us. Battery Park wasn't _that_ far. Niko could track me with our phones. I had to keep him occupied. Keep him talking.

"What are you talking about, Grimm? What bigger picture?"

"We are better than our ilk, Cal. You know that as well as I do. So it goes without saying that we should be the ones ruling the cattle littering this world. Yours or mine, it doesn't matter," he added before I could open my mouth to correct him. "We need kin worthy of reigning with us. Worthy to take over. This," he pointed right at Cassie's stomach, baring what was left of those metal teeth. "Is how."

Correction, not her stomach…her womb. And like the succubae, I doubted he was asking fucking _permission_. "You just roofied her! Obviously, she isn't consenting to this big picture of yours. So you're asking if I'm okay with raping her."

Grimm rolled his red eyes. "Don't be naive, little brother. She's used to this. Her cousins born with her, the Auphe themselves, you, me. She isn't the Virgin Mary, Joseph."

That made my stomach drop and my blood run tepid through my arms; up my spine it was frozen stiff. Me? The me of her world...raped her? Just like Grimm, just like _them_. What had he become? When I gained control had he lost his mind? Decided he was a god and could do whatever he pleased, including raping drugged up women to father children in his likeness? Because there was no way even Cal of her world could take her down without some sedative in her system that was clear when she took both me and Grimm down in a seconds. Uninjured and she would have been the only half-Auphe of her world quite quickly.

"You have three choices, Caliban," Grimm told me, cutting into my reeling thoughts. "Let me take her, _join_ me in taking her, which I can assure you, you enjoy to a great extent in my world, or defy me tonight and be prepared to watch each and every one of your loved ones die."

My jaw clenched. I wasn't the monster of that other world. I may have gotten crazy enough to call my naughty urges by name like someone with a dissociative disorder, but I sure as hell wasn't gone enough to rape someone and enjoy it. Not to mention, he made a bad move threatening my family. We had made those terms long ago; Grimm knew better, he knew he would lose all potential association with me as well as his life if he ever threatened my family.

"I'm going to have to choose door number four, asshole." I made like I was pulling the trigger, actually I did, but I knew the bullet would be wasted. I wanted him to dodge and I wanted him away from Cassie. He leaped from the shot and rolled, far enough away that he could gate again. Not that it matter if he was gating, up down, or behind me. I was running to Cassie. I was scooping her up in my arms and getting us the hell out of there. And praise whatever deity that enjoyed my misery for taking a dinner break because a gate came when I called.

And just to be sure he wouldn't follow I took a trip to a location he would never know of; good old Clarion.

Cassie was awake when I flopped down on my ass in the middle of the forest I used to explore outside of one of the many trailer parks I attempted to call home in my childhood. This one in particular didn't have many good memories. My and Niko's mother died here, not that Sophia burning in the trailer wasn't a proper epitaph for one bound to hell, but we still lost our mother and Nik had lost me –not permanently, but for two days it had been something to consider.

Just being here made my skin crawl as I felt the phantom claws of the Auphe digging into my ankles to drag me off to their lair. They must have expected Niko to perish in that fire too, not come vaulting out of the house like a phoenix bent on vengeance, waiting for my grand return and saving me from myself and them all those years after. There wasn't enough that could be said about my keeper. I doubted I would ever find a man better than Niko Leandros.

My concerns with nostalgic nightmares could wait though. I had a broken doll resting over my thigh and she was still bleeding. Her ribs almost seemed to be protruding like a hernia (more so than from not eating enough cheeseburgers). Grimm might have broken a few, but they were still concealed under her skin. I, on the other hand, had punctured a lung with my knife if her labored breathing meant anything. It wasn't gasping, just a soft wheeze, so she would survive. She didn't cry out or even whimper, when I lifted her up and carried her to the outskirts of the trailer park.

I was hoping to find one uninhabited at the moment and managed to strike gold with a foreclosed double wide. Goodfellow would have been proud to know his lock picking lessons went to good use. Fortunately, it was also refurbished and ready for a short sale. I laid Cassie down on the leather couch in the living room. The leather was dark and could mask her blood; I could wipe off the access off with a wet cloth and I didn't think the owners would figure it out unless they did a forensic sweep.

"Hey," I called to her. Whatever drugs Grimm had given her made her as loopy as that time I tried to fight the sleep medication Niko slipped me when I refused to rest off injuries. It was hard to get her to focus. I held the side of her head to keep it from lolling. "I'm going to try and fix you up. That means I'm going to have to take off your shirt. That's it though. I'm not doing anything else, okay?"

Her full lips parted and her brow furrowed, I didn't think it was from pain, considering my other hand already placed pressure on her ripped up side to see the shape her ribs were in. A sedative and a pain reliever, at least Grimm was considerate while violently raping women. "I'm assuring you, okay? I'm not interested in Grimm or his plans of world domination. Whatever the Cal of your world did, whatever monster he's become, I'm not him."

She mouthed the words 'not a monster'; it was barely a whisper on her ragged throat. I offered her a smile, glad that she somehow managed to separate me from the man that raped her for the convoluted benefit of taking over the world with his own mini-mes. I stood from the couch, for the first time feeling the painful stretch of the wound in my own shoulder. The punctures were in and out though; Cassie hadn't cut through tendons or anything vital. Just a bit of muscle and a lot of flesh.

In the bathroom, I pulled my shirt to the side to check it out and noticed that she had only got me twice. With five fingers that seemed a little weird, but I was just going to thank her for not mauling my shoulder anymore than previous paien had. It could be dealt with later. Right now I had to find something to stanch the blood flowing from the half peri. Considering both Cassie's legacy lines, she was probably immune to infection. I was half human and even a rusty nail to my heel couldn't give me tetanus, but blood loss was another matter.

The bathroom cabinets had no wealth inside them other than some Band-Aids that would only suffice for a papercut. Apparently, furnished houses only went so far in their realism. Under the sink, however, I found a first aid kit, a fire extinguisher, and some rubbing alcohol; thank HOA for safety precautions. I left the extinguisher in hopes that our day wouldn't get any more disastrous and took my finds back to the living room by way of the open-concept kitchen. Yeah, open concept in a trailer home. That shit was becoming an epidemic.

It was in the kitchen that I spotted the little office some realtor set up complete with standard paperwork strewn about and a stapler. The kind you could unhinge for bulletin boards. I grabbed that too; store-bought first aid kits didn't usually come with sterilized needle and thread for stitches. Most people used their benefits and Health Savings accounts for that stuff. Cassie and I didn't have that luxury unless we wanted to be the next alien conspiracy theory the world was hiding away in the lab. Hell, judging by the elaborate cyborg material in her neck (and around Grimm's for that matter) she may have already had a taste of that horror deeply ingrained in me.

In any regards, I needed to get inventive. So staples doused in rubbing alcohol a year expired and sling-back stapler was going to have to do the trick for now. She whimpered a little under my hands, mostly because an amateur was shoving fractured bone into place and pulling skin back together. It also meant the drugs weren't the reason for her minimal reactions to my handling. Her pain tolerance was just that high. I'd learned from the Auphe and my own version of Grimm that pain went hand in hand with our ancestry.

She didn't seem frightened of me, at all. Hooded eyes watched me closely, when they weren't squinted in agony or closed from the drugs. I was able to keep her covered; only ripping open the side of her borrowed shirt, which felt like a necessity after the dignity Grimm stripped from her. A blanket lied over her legs and the silk shirt still covered her breasts, I could feel the supple warmth brush my knuckles while I worked but clenched through it. She didn't need someone acting like a horny teenage around her.

"You need more than this," I muttered, almost to myself. She needed my brother and his bag of surgeon tricks. She needed his dissolving thread for the ripped muscle and someone to figure out how to re-inflate a lung.

I frowned as I dabbed the hand towel from the bathroom over her side to clear the blood. I'd submerge that in the alcohol too, just in case. At the end of my medical capabilities, I tucked her in on the couch, cleaned myself up a little in the bathroom, and then left in the trailer to sit on the wood stairs at the front. I didn't have a distraction now and my mind returned to the horrors my doppelganger probably put her through.


	9. Chapter 9 - Cal

CHAPTER NINE

ƆȺȽ

All my life there had been one constant. Though my childhood, where at some points I wasn't even old enough to care for myself, to the more recent times, where it was myself I needed to be protected from. There was on single constant. That constant changed my diapers when my mother was too drunk to be bothered to or out for days swindling her next victim without the constraints of motherhood. That constant fed me, clothed me, and taught me everything it was to be a man when his own father ditched us for purer Rom blood. That constant never doubted me, never abandoned me, and never allowed me to believe I was the monster my mother named me after. My brother, my rock, my moral compass…how the hell was I supposed to tell him what I'd done?

It wasn't me, technically speaking, but Cassie had said (wrote) herself that this world wasn't a whole lot different than the one she came from. The one where choices that 'I' made led to buying in to Grimm's plans. That 'me' chose to incapacitate and sexually assault someone for the sake of world domination. It was sickening. So sickening, in fact, that although my stomach was growling like a werewolf trapped in a pen I couldn't even think about food without my throat convulsing with nausea.

What the hell did I tell my faithful brother? I told him not to come and get me, that's what I told him.

I told him I was fine, Cassie and I had it out, and I would bring her back in one piece once she recovered from my ass-kicking. I sounded pretty convincing over the phone, but he knew little brother too well. One wavering syllable and he would know Cal wasn't in a happy place. I didn't hear one, but considering my head space at the moment, I didn't doubt there had been a hitch or a pause just a fraction too long. Plus I hung up on him.

He would find me and he would come for me so I waited on the tiny front stoop, leaned back with my elbows resting on the top step and my legs stretched out before me. It was a failed attempt to relax. My head reeled with so many contradictory thoughts.

For months now, even since Grimm put it in my head that his ilk was leveling up to full Auphe little by little and, by extension, so were we, I'd been thinking differently. I believed him on some level, I accepted what I was to become, and determined to end it before I hurt anyone I loved. And because of that second one –the acceptance part– I'd become less shocked by the things I willingly or naturally did that would make my brother cringe. Hell picturing his disappointment was the only thing stopping me from mass homicide when someone got in my way. Like Jack's pack of white-hoodie cultists. Woulda killed them, coulda killed them, but instead I chose to scar them irreparably for life because my brother would frown upon murder by proxy even if it wasn't my own hands delving in the knife.

So violent urges and murderous instinctual gates not so appalling anymore, but rape? For some reason that still ticked in the human percentage of my brain. Did that mean the other world me had lost that percentage? Did that mean I would soon lose that scruple?

I contemplated this conundrum for the two hours it took Robin and Niko to track me down (checked on Cassie once or twice, but she had fallen into a comfortable sleep).

I watched the jalopy my brother called a car bounce over potholes as it navigated down the street toward the newly paved car port in front of our borrowed safe house. Goodfellow got out before the car was even in park, giving me the evil eye and glancing around as if I'd strung Cassie up in a tree to drain her blood before dinning on her flesh.

"Inside," I told him. "She's going to need better aid than what I gave her."

That was all Robin needed; he stepped over me and entered the double wide without a word. Niko, on the other hand, stayed outside and stood over me for study.

"What happened?" my brother asked, a hand to the permanent iron railing that trailed the short way down the steps.

"He should have told us," I responded. Defending my decision to gate Cassie and me away from them was the first thing I needed to do. I would have to defend my lack of participation regarding her condition soon enough, but I could feasibly do that by pointing out that I hadn't killed her and I'd dressed her wounds as coarse as my aid might have been.

"He didn't tell you because he feared this reaction. We were already leery of her considering her supposed death."

I rolled my eyes. He probably wouldn't have readily concurred with the puck if I hadn't scared the piss out of him, calling him from where I had. Plus I'd decided to fight a half Auphe much older than me without back up. And I knew now if she had wanted me dead that would have been the last poor decision of my life.

"It's not supposed. She's dead in this world, but this isn't her world."

"You say that with new conviction."

"I met the other Grimm…about the same skill level, but he's a new level of sick."

Niko leaned down over the railing. It wasn't to get more comfortable; he was tensing up, concerned. "She wasn't lying?" I shook my head. "You're sure?"

"Positive. He knew Cassie…biblically, but he would have never known the Cassie of our world. She died before any of us were born."

"Biblically," Niko repeated. "As a lover?" I gave him a jaundiced look and he retracted the question. He didn't have time to ask another either, considering that Robin busted out the front door and – had I not been partial to wearing my hair in a short pony tail close to my nape which served as a better handle – would have yanked me up by my non-existent scruff. As it was the hair pulling wasn't all it was cracked up to be in his stories.

I cursed, but didn't fight him. I deserved some punishment and this was a milder form. Niko was right behind us; medical bag of goodies instinctually in hand or maybe it was just experience that gave him that foresight. My brother was probably getting more out of the words the puck was stringing together as he dragged me back into the house, but I was too well practiced in ignoring him that I found it hard to concentrate on his clucking when my mind was elsewhere.

I got the gist of it though, when Goodfellow shoved me at the couch Cassie lied on like he was shoving a dog's nose in its own shit. I knew I'd be blamed for her full condition, so the fury aimed at me for my alleged loss of control was unsurprising.

"How was this called for?" Goodfellow snapped in a hiss that finally reached my ears. A hiss in consideration for the sleeping girl. "For all the rationale and decent upbringing at your disposal and you act like a territorial dog when faced with another of your kin."

"I didn't do that," I explained. "What you saw is what I did. A stab and a few punches. The rest was Grimm."

"Grimm?" Goodfellow repeated just like Niko had. I rubbed at my temples as he looked to my brother for confirmation.

"The other Grimm," Nik supplied. "The one from her world."

"He tried to wear her ribs as a glove, not me." I glanced down at her form and shifted back. She wasn't awake, but I still wondered. What did she think when she looked at me? How could she even offer a smile after my doppelganger's misdeeds? "He drugged her too. I don't know with what."

"With her injuries that's probably for the best." Niko shooed me away so he could stoop down to her not so comfortable bedside. He peeled back the blood encrusted shirt, surveyed my shoddy medical attention, then sighed and went to work without comment. First easing the staples out as gently as he could.

"What's wrong with you?" Goodfellow asked. He was pacing about the coffee table, but his eyes never left me. It wasn't an accusatory tone anymore, but a suspiciously inquisitive one. I was acting out of sorts and he was calling me on it.

"I'm sorry," I countered dryly. "Fuck you?"

He narrowed his sly green eyes at my response and circled the cheap pressboard table to get to my side. There was a finger pointed in my face and I had the incredible urge to break it, even if I'd never be fast enough without a gate. "As much as the darkness in your eyes can compare to the waters of the Acheron River on a busy pass lately, there is something else amiss. Is it the fact that there are other dimensions similar to ours giving you the complexion of Hades. Because although, startling after learning of past lives—"

"And angels, demons, Heaven, Hell," I amended for him.

"You shouldn't be so aghast and a quiver. Compared to this world –compared to me – you know only a fraction, not even a fraction, of what is beyond your window. There are so many hells, Caliban, so many, yet you haven't visited a single one."

"Meaning you've encountered people from another dimension before?" I challenged with a heaping side of cynicism.

"What do you call Tumulus? Is it not another dimension? Not of our world? We have already seen a gate leading to there, a gate in our world leading to the beginning of time aided by Darkling's power. God exists, but so do and did the gods of old. All of them, every single one. The crass, the arrogant, and the valiant. They have homes, worlds, dimensions and they most certainly can visit ours, but Cassie's world is unknown. Cassie's world, an unnecessary replica of ours, doesn't make sense." The puck tilted his head to one side, one sandy eyebrow arched in consideration. "But judging by your dry tone it is not the new knowledge that has you so sallow. What did Grimm say to you?"

I was used to Niko reading me, but not Robin. He wasn't usually intuitively invasive—always invasive, but never so spot on; it was a new transgression I hardly appreciated.

In the most concise and deadened way possible, I explained what Grimm wanted Castiella for and what he'd said the other me had done. It was only difficult when the bile started creeping up my gullet. Robin kept making faces as I spoke, as if my words didn't compute. Not that I blamed him. Me attacking his best friend was bad enough without the knowledge that she'd almost been raped by an asshole like Grimm what we could only assume was again.

Niko paused in stitching the girl up about the time I mentioned what he knew was really bothering me. Cassie hadn't moved on the couch since she'd passed out after I was done my rough medical treatment. Niko's hands were much more skilled, but it still surprised me that she didn't so much as twitch when he dug in deep to sew up the muscle that was torn. Either those drugs actually lessened the pain like I'd first though, or her body had just shut down and said fuck it.

"I understand the temptation of feeling guilty for thoughts that haven't progressed into actions, but you cannot blame yourself for someone else's actions that you would never even _think_ to do."

"Thanks, Yoda," I grumbled and raked both hands through my bedraggled hair. Pacing seemed better than, standing there with their eyes glued to me. "If anything this proves my point."

"What point?" Nik asked cautiously as if he knew where I was going with this and dared me to continue.

"What I am," I pressed. "You always try to ignore the fact that I'm half-demon." I tilted my head, remembering that wasn't entirely accurate. Demons and angels were a different breed than Auphe. "I'm half-monster and despite your incredible ability to function in denial, I'm a monster held in check by a faithful brother and a brittle moral compass. This proves that! The fact that I –even in another world – am capable of raping a defenseless creature with pleasure."

"Cal, the fact that such appalls you proves _my_ point. You are not the monster you believe you are." Niko started to calmly pack up the unused or reusable equipment into his black medical bag.

"Really? So the fact that I was going to kill her makes no difference." I pulled out my gun and aimed it at her unconscious form. "I have no attachment to her. I could pull the trigger right now. When I gated her away, I did it instinctively and so I could kill her without you Jiminy Cricket-ing in my ear. I even pulled the trigger when she was down. Would have hit her between the eyes if she hadn't put the safety on to spare you a misfire on the couch."

Niko frowned and stood from his crouched position. He stood in front of her, but wasn't exactly blocking my shot. "If you had the slightest inclination to kill her now you would have shot her before we came. Shall we have this unseemly conversation about the paths you choose again?"

My Glock immediately went back into the holster. It wasn't long ago we had that talk. The one where Nik admitted that if I kept down my unrelenting gate-happy path he would no longer be able to take me out of I lost it. And that battle would end in the nightmare of his blood on my hands. I didn't want to rehash that conversation. Not now, not ever again.

"It is your choice, Cal," Niko went on. "Always will be. The Cal of the other world, whatever he had done, made his own choices. You should use this as an opportunity. Ask Castiella what drove him to such a dark place and don't open that door."

I snorted. "You mean gate?"

"As heart-warming as this moment of comfort between brothers may be, there is a small part of your story that has me severely distraught."

I glanced over at Robin. Feeling that was a vast understatement coming from an animal usually so overt with exaggeration. "What might that be? That you couldn't defile her first?"

I saw his jaw clench under his perfectly moisturized skin; it was a rather low blow, but I wasn't chock full of happy thoughts at the moment. "Castiella and my relationship thrived on many levels, including quite a few nights of sexual exploration, but I would never force myself on her. And that particular aspect isn't what unsettles. As Grimm so tactfully implied, Cassie's chastity was stolen long ago by your snow-hided relatives."

He paused, a grave look in his eyes despite his stoic tone. His arms crossed over his chest as he gazed down at his friend. "What distressed me is the reason for Grimm's brutal treatment and the futility of it." Green eyes panned to Niko, then fixed on me. "Cassie has been barren all her life. She was born that way, _made_ that way. To be a child like no other and bare no other child like her."

I gawked at him. The gears in my cranium taking a bit more grease to rotate that one around, mostly because how stupid could Grimm be?

"You're telling me that Grimm's grand scheme to impregnate her by any means necessary to birth a new breed of half Auphe is impossible?"

"The Auphe gave up before the Huns descended on China. Cassie has sought out healers to confirm this. She was cautious and terrified of the prospect of having children that she would ultimately have to slaughter or be slaughtered by. Same as you, I assume. Her inability to have children was ultimately why the Auphe killed her…as well as due to her successfully hunting and killing several hundred of them over time."

We all gradually focused on Castiella, still half clothed, but now more professionally stitched up. She looked like she was just sleeping off a bender and a bar fight.

"Maybe someone should tell Grimm," I murmured.

"I'm sure she's tried."

I shook my head at Robin's solemn answer. "That's fucked up." The words hissed out with more meaning that just the level of Grimm's sick, stubborn intentions. That meant the me of the other world was just as bad, just as stubborn…no, worse. Goodfellow would have told him and if at any point the puck and I had the kind of relationship I had with Robin now then Other Cal would believe him. Other Cal would know and still assaulted her.

I flopped down on a chair so new it creaked as the fabric stretched over the cushion. All I could do was repeat the obvious, this time it was barely a whisper. "That is fucked up."

Cassie was up the next morning, after we had moved her into a motel off the highway. It wasn't as nice as the foreclosed double wide, but at least no one would call the cops when they saw our shadows moving behind curtains.

She was still a bit uncoordinated from the drugs, but her side had healed with amazing speed. I knew this because I walked in on her in the bathroom. Unintentional, but I admitted to gawking for a moment, before ducking my head in apology and attempting to slip back out.

"You have to go?" I stopped short at her voice, my hand on the door frame and my back turned. Her voice was still husky with disuse, but much stronger than yesterday. That part, that wound, had more time to heal since I hadn't reopened it in a fit of violent paranoia. The huskiness was actually kinda sexy, of course that also might have had a lot to do with her being more than half naked behind me. The tone wasn't what porn scenes were made of though, even if the words easily could have been. She wasn't pleading for me to stay in the bathroom with her, but I also didn't know exactly what she meant.

"Ish hired me to protect Robin from you if you went crazy, which doesn't seem to be the case. Protecting you wasn't in the cards, but I wasn't planning on going anywhere. Unless you _want _me to leave protecting you to Niko," I told her. After all, I had the face of a bastard she knew all too well. I wasn't about to shirk this job for Ishiah, but I could certainly keep out of her company and track the other Grimm if it was better for her psyche. It was a better use of my skills anyway. "If you not comfortable with me being around you—"

"I meant to the bathroom," she amended. There was a little laugh in there. Not a soft feminine lilt, but a throaty hum that sang of danger and fun. A breath of the other side of her gene pool. I glanced back. She hadn't even bothered to cover up. She wore a pair of plain gray underwear; bikini cut that showed off the roundness of her ass perfectly. That was it. The t-shirt she had been changed into when we checked in to the hotel room was crumpled up on the sink counter. Her upper body was completely bare and her healed wounds, or even the Technicolor blossoms of bruises, weren't the first thing I noticed. For as compact and skinny as she was she had an amazing rack.

As if her nudity was nothing to consider, she motioned with a quick head tilt toward the toilet. "If it's a piss, you can go ahead."

"Uh..." Her matter of fact tone and unabashed comment attracted me all the more, which wasn't good considering her dress. I didn't think she would appreciate me whipping out my dick right then and if I stared at her any longer I probably wouldn't be able to piss. "I'll wait."

"It's not like I've never seen it before, Cal."

That hit hard, which effectively negated my previous arousal enough that I could look at her as something other than a playmate picture in certain magazines.

Her body was beautiful in its own feminine right, but it also told a story. A violent one. Scars in various stages of age were scattered all over. Along her jaw were three faded ones that jaggedly dipped to her breast. More along her stomach, a nasty shivery line over her inner thigh. Older ones along her arms and torso. The pucker of a bullet wound just over her heart. The ripple of a sword wound between her two floating ribs on the right side…most of them had the serrated edge in depth of an Auphe's talon, but how many of them were made by me, the other me. The one that she'd 'seen before' because he was holding her down and screwing her without mercy?

After a moment, in which I was utterly silent and probably raking my gaze over her like a creeper, Cassie reached for the t-shirt and shrugged it on. The black fabric fell just low enough to cover her ass and make the image alluring again. "Better?"

I snorted, almost smiling. "Not really, but that's probably just my depravity talking." I cringed and held up a hand as if it could magically take that comment back. "Not that I'd try anything…it's just…um."

"So how long ago did you break it off with Delilah?"

I startled at that –I'd gotten used to her knowing too much about my life, but her tone was almost catty. Like a jealous ex-girlfriend asking how your current relationship was going. Only Cassie wasn't an ex and I didn't have a current relationship, unless she counted porn and a solo act.

"After she tried to shoot down a friend of mine and became Alpha Bitch?" Cassie lifted an eyebrow to tell me I hadn't answered the question. "Four, five years?"

Then she gave me that look, the same one Goodfellow gave me when he figured out I was a virgin. Poor, pitiful, sexless Cal. Granted, Goodfellow helped me alleviate that with a nymph named Charm, but why Cassie would give me sympathy seemed absurd.

"No one else?" She tilted her head to one side like a puppy. "Why not?"

The seam of my mouth tightened. "I'll, uh, leave you to this."

I tried to leave, uncomfortable with more than her nudity now, but she caught my wrist and pulled me fully into the bathroom with strength I hadn't expected her to have. Not sure why, she had me strung over a couch with her leg yesterday.

"Cal, I'm sorry—"

"Don't," I snapped, complete with a pointed finger in face. If I'd had my gun on me it might have been a barrel instead. Just because I felt bad for her didn't mean I trusted her or liked her involved in anything remotely resembling my private life. I couldn't really control myself when it came to baring it all. No one could force those skeletons into the light.

"Why do you care anyway? After everything he'd done to you? The other me. Grimm made it very clear that I joined in on his fun back in your world. That I bought into his birthing a new generation by using you as an unwilling incubator. And he made it clear I didn't use a turkey-baster."

"What?" she seemed genuinely confused so I assumed she'd lost consciousness at the point of the fight. Unfortunately, we had an audience now. My raised voice had brought big brother and the nosy puck to the threshold to make sure I didn't try to plant my knife inside her again. Plant my… fuck, Cal. I gagged at my own unintentional euphemism and pulled my pointing hand back to rake it over my face.

"Why do you keep showing me compassion? Why do you even trust me? The events might be different, but I'm still Caliban. I could be that same monster he is in your world. I could become that!"

Cassie slapped me. Hard and quick enough that I was leaned over the sink to regain balance before I even realized what the sting in my jaw was from. Undaunted and unafraid, she grabbed my accosted face and turned it to my shoulder so I could see the gold flickering in mahogany eyes. "You are not nor will you ever be a monster, no matter the realm."

"You can say that? After I, he, raped you to rebuild a race he should despise?"

The gold sapped from her eyes and those full lips parted as if I had been the one to strike her. "Grimm said that you raped me?"

Well, that was shocked and aghast if I'd ever heard it. "He said you were used to 'it' because of him and me…and the Auphe." I swallowed to force out the second part because that had been the nail in the coffin for me. "He said I enjoyed it."

Cassie took a step back from me, glanced over at our quiet witnesses outside of the bathroom, then let off an impressive string of curses, some of which weren't even in English.

"Something tells me that the very thing the boy has been agonizing over like a priest who hath coveted his neighbor's wife in every possible fashion of the Karma Sutra was misconstrued," Goodfellow chimed in as he leaned against the door frame. His green eyes panned over me, then settled on his best friend. "Since you seem to have you voice back, though dangerously sensual in its disuse, would you care to enlighten us as to what Grimm's falsified allegations truly meant? Quickly, before Caliban claims a life of celibacy for his doppelganger's misdeeds."

Cassie rolled her eyes at Robin's wagging tongue. She moved next to me at the sink and turned the faucet to cold. I watched her run a washcloth under the water. I flinched when she pressed the cool cloth to my jaw, but let her because it sluiced the pain she'd caused.

"You never raped me, Caliban. You'd never dream of it." She dabbed the cloth gently and gave a small smile. "Yes, I've been taken by you enough times that we lost count within the first week, but it was never….unwanted. Understand?"

I stared at her for a long moment. The way she said my name in passing, even my full name. The way she touched me now and before with the trust she showed, the knowledge she had. She could read me like an open book and I didn't think that was because of our shared lineage. Even fighting for her life with me she pulled back and she slapped the man proclaiming Caliban Leandros was a monster. She slapped him fucking hard.

"You're in love with me…with him, Cal."

Her lips pressed together and she let the washcloth drop into the basin of the sink. No doubt, this was something she hadn't wanted to tell us for fear of it influencing our choices or actions. Still she gave in and nodded. "Very much so."

"Grimm's jealous."

Cassie let off a breathy laugh. "Grimm is pissed off. You have what he wants."

"His incubator," I said bitterly.

She gave me a sad smile and flicked a piece of my dark hair out of my face. "Among other things."

"You see this is where I fail to understand the logic of our other world heathen," Goodfellow mused. He leaned further into the bathroom, actually slipping around both Cassie and I to come up to her other side. "My little Castiella was adamantly against ushering in a new batch of little Auphelings. She sought out healers to confirm that which was already a biological improbability considering her conception."

At our, or at least my puzzled stare, the puck went on. He leaned both arms to the sink and tilted his chin to his shoulder, watching Cassie closely. "Peri might be former angels, but Auphe, surprisingly, have not evolved from demons. Without God's hand an angel can't be _born. _Castiella was created by a god, a Titan actually, in a fit of the paien's boredom. He went through a phase where he mashed creations together to see what would happen. Among other things he is responsible for revenants, Venus fly traps, the platypus…and Cassie. And for those of you falling asleep the moment I open my mouth and can't be bothered to expand you mind beyond a single sentence: It is as I said before, Castiella was barren."

"I was born from rape," Cassie said slowly. "During the wars between the Auphe and peri, hundreds of peri were taken from Earth to Tumulus. My mother, Ishiah's sister, was one of them. In my world…angels, demons…gods, they don't exist."

Robin's brow scrunched up as he considered her words. "That might have been a more sufficient 'difference between worlds' to offer when we asked yesterday."

"I'm a construct?" she pressed, more than rattled by her friend's confession.

"Here, yes. And was," Goodfellow pointed out. He nicked her under the chin with his finger. "But aren't we all? Or aren't you all? Some god, somewhere, created the worlds we live in, the creatures we are and see. The pucks, however, are a mystery. Much too extraordinary for anyone god to proclaim they had the power to create beings so lined with perfection."

"Either that or on one wants to take responsibility for making a race of horny, lying goats," I offered and gave Robin a tight smile. "Either or."

Goodfellow ignored me, still concentrated on Cassie. "Are you saying that because you were born from the loins of peri and Auphe in your world you have the ability to reproduce? I would imagine the hormones and genetics would be far too different between the two races to make such a conception feasible."

The three of us looked to Cassie for clarification that she obviously didn't want to offer. "The hormones negate naturally; I shouldn't be able to have children."

"Shouldn't," I echoed, because there had been a little hesitant emphasis there.

"Things," Cassie started, then fixed her eyes on the sink bowl. She picked up the wash cloth, wrung it out, and began folding it. "There are things I shouldn't discuss—"

"Oh jesus," I growled. I snatched the cloth square from her and chucked it across the bathroom onto the floor of the tub. "Enough with the claims of trying to protect our feelings! If you'd just come clean and told me we were sleeping together I wouldn't have been torturing myself for the last twenty-four hours! The secrecy is _not_ _helping_. It never does. I don't care if I made the best decisions of my life in your world and I'm living the dream, that isn't going change jack shit here. Tell us the truth. Tell us why Grimm is after a womb that can't produce an egg let alone a hell-spawn baby."

Her full lips parted just a fraction. I could almost see her hand twitch with the urge to smack me upside the head again. Cassie took in a cleansing breath while I tried to figure out which part of what I said brought her to stifle the urge to rectify my words with a physical retort.

"The Vigil. They have managed to imprison me on more than one occasion. They implanted the device in my neck and they had grand plans to use me in very much the same way as Grimm. To birth a tool of untold power indentured to them." She took in a breath, swallowed through the crackling in her throat and went on as if reciting a lecture. "They altered my hormones and implanted fabricated eggs with my genes. You would have to ask them how. They didn't see it fit to explain the procedure while they kept me so sedated that I couldn't lift my head."

Her voice wavered again. She tucked her arms around her tiny waist. Pulling away from me and Robin, she backed up into the towel rack. "Grimm knows. He knows that he is after a womb that can produce offspring. At least, until the last regimented hormone treatment wears off." Cassie glanced up at me. It looked as if she were pulling in a breath to say more, but her lips sealed shut and she tossed her head to the side. "That is all you need to know."

I doubted that, but I was willing to let it slide for the moment. Knowing she could have kids because humans and science imposed that consequence on her was enough to have my head pounding as blood rushed about in odd directions. It was deplorable, underhanded, and a little frightening. I'd always though the Auphe were on the list of monsters humans pretended didn't exist for their own sanity. Feared so justifiably that a human, even if they knew about the paien, would never dare to blink in the presence of one.

In her world, things had clearly escalated more quickly. The humans, the Vigil, sounded like they were running head-long for that stage where their experiments turn on them and start a rebellious genocide on anything homo sapien. They were imprisoning half-Auphes and doing so with the outright intention of stealing their lab-created children?

"Have they…succeeded?" Niko asked delicately. "The Vigil or Grimm?"

Cassie's mahogany eyes flickered to each of us in turn. "In obtaining their own half Auphe weapon of future mass destruction? No."

And with that she walked out of the room. I stared after her, then panned my eyes toward my brother. "Something tells me that was worded like that on purpose."

Niko's mouth twitched with a frown. "I think we should concentrate on event we can affect."

"Like what?"

My brother's gray eyes fixed on me. "Like making sure that bastard never touches her again."

I nodded. Seemed I would be taking over that job from my other self, wherever he was.


	10. Chapter 10 - Caliban

**CHAPTER TEN**

**CALIBAN**

Everyone has the moments of hindsight clarity, where one just has to think 'I should have never answered the phone'. I'd had plenty of unfortunate, slap-to-the-forehead, face-palming experiences, but never for something as mundane as any other guy. Sure enough, though, sitting in the back of a mangled hunk of metal my brother liked to call a car, outside of a squat single level office building hidden behind a water treatment facility, I mentally kicked myself for answered the damned phone.

We even had to ferry the car over to this patch of land; Niko didn't want me gating Connor so young, fearing it would somehow send the Bat Signal out to the Auphe or wake the sleeping dragon inside the infant. The Auphe might feel the gate up open if they were close enough, but they couldn't do a damned thing about it.

I remained seated in the back of the clunker with Connor sleeping soundly in his car seat. Ward's Island's water treatment plant wafted some gut-voiding smells in our direction, but I was more concentrated on the office building that I knew plummeted underground six stories like the Umbrella Corporation gave them their blueprints. Only the Vigil's weapon of mass destruction threatened our existence with a time lip instead of zombies.

"What the hell is going on?" I murmured ever so slowly. All of us leaned forward in our seats, Nik and Dante up front and me between. "You call in a bomb threat of something?"

"I did not," Niko answered, squinting as he peered through the windshield.

The call that led us here had been intriguing enough. Very cloak and dagger, no names given, it came through on my burn phone, not my personal cell which was a bit comforting that even the Vigil's reach was limited. "We require your assistance at Ward's Island," a man's voice had said sternly after my snapped greeting to know what the caller wanted.

My reply had been a laugh. "Hey, I returned your scientist. So unless you figured out a way to get Cassie back here fuck off and deal with your own messes."

"We can't retrieve the Harbinger without your assistance, Caliban. Come to the address. View the effort of one of the few friends you have in this world."

He hung up and I was left with a witty comeback on my tongue I'd probably never be able to use again. I told Niko and we decided to make it a family outing. There were several reasons why. One, the guy was right. They needed me and my pates to fix their screw up, get my lover home and kill Grimm before he altered the future into some sort of suck playground for him and his offspring. Two, the Vigil rarely called me by name. It might mean monster in a literary manner, but they usually called me by some number or code colors…or just 'monster' worked for them.

There were other reasons, but most of it boiled down to them _asking_ for my help. Even with our private business of weeding out the baddest baddies and doing away with them the Vigil never wanted a leg up in the same field. Despite having seers and vampires and other paien on their payroll they wanted nothing to do with the local half-Auphe hoodlum. At least, not until their pet project kicked over his snack tray, stomped his feet and high jacked their Slider portal along with my girlfriend.

We need the Vigil's technology and they needed my ability to fuck with space and time. Bottom line right there. We all knew it. Hated it, but know it.

So we piled in the car after Connor's bottle was empty and ferried ourselves to ground zero. Only ground zero was being evacuated.

Men and women in shuts, lab coats, and standard security mall cop uniforms were filing out of the building and ushered into awaiting correctional blue buses like ants along the pavement. Some were holding personal belongings or files or boxes filled with their life's work. One guy in a navy suit even has his arms wrapped around a knee-high potted plant. It didn't matter what they were holding though, no food, drink, or government secrets allowed on the bus. Everything was taken from them and handed off to a group of guys in riot gear by an armored truck or tossed into a pit ten feet wide and currently on fire.

A few fought the airport pat-down, or just pleaded desperately to keep their files. The guy with the ficus even got a good hit on an officer with a carbine, but his plant was chucked into the fire and he was dragged away, wailing in lament, to a separate bus reserved for the bad boys and girls.

I considered the words the guy on the phone had spoken. The efforts of a friend. It all made a slow sort of baffling sense. Baffling because I never thought it would happen.

"I don't understand?" Dante muttered from the passenger's seat. "Those being transferred are Vigil, but the men guiding them are Vigil as well."

It was true. The Vigil's little moon emblem was on each black uniform's shoulder, accompanied by various stars and stripes to indicate station. We were too far away to view much detail, but I had a feeling none of those in possession of weapon had 'Vigil Chapter: Manhattan' embossed on those badges.

"A friend's effort," I said as I leaned my chin to Dante's seat. I'd told them what our mystery caller had said so they didn't need any further explanation. Niko, didn't, at least.

"Josh," my brother smirked ever so slightly. "Even stuck in Manhattan, watching over Cassie _and_ Connor he got that information to his superiors."

"He shut down the Manhattan Project 2.0…a little late, but…" I trailed off, watching the newly unemployed, amoral assholes that allowed a harmless paien to be used as lab rats and my lover to be locked into some puppy mill contract bullshit. They took away her free will, raped her, imprisoned her, and tried to do the same thing with both my sons. These other Chapters could do a lot worse than take away their toys in my book.

We were parked far enough own that we probably looked like some kids waiting for the cops to clear out before they made their drug run. I sighed and unstrapped Connor from his car seat. "Well, they invited us. Let's see what they have to say."

"Stay away from the crowd. I don't know what they'll do seeing Connor and Dante."

I hoisted my three-month-old son to my shoulder so he could keep on sleeping and drooling away. His white blond hair was so soft and fine, it tickled my jaw, but that just made me hold him closer. My Desert Eagle was tucked away beneath my leather jacket along with my serrated Ka-bar a little more obviously strapped to a holster on my hip; never left home without them.

Dante hung close to my side where Connor was as he proceeded toward the building. A few of the Enforcers from other Chapters caught sight of us before the ants did. A wall of black shirt muscle came up to block the peons like something out of the back halls of a rock concert. We were still in view and people stared or cursed my existence, but no one chanced an attack and I doubted that was due to the bodyguards.

I brushed my thumb over the back of Connor's head as we stood outside the car. We…I had made the mistake of bringing my vulnerable son to a potentially dangerous situation before. It had gotten Dante hurt, taken by the Auphe. Something about this had lent me to believe it would all me all right. One, I had a few more gating tricks up my sleeve. Two, these were humans not steroid-pumped Wolfmen or the greatest of feared evil. They had weapons, they had weapons catered to taking me down, but then we went back to the trick of the gates and the cool metal against my pectoral muscle.

"Caliban." It was the same Morgan Freeman, smooth jazz, voice I'd heard on the phone. Pulling my attention from the mob getting kicked to the curb, I saw an older black man standing military style in a pressed navy suit.

The sprawling single level building looked like an old library or school from one of the towns Nik and I grew up in. There were several covered corridors stretching out in spokes from an epi-center. I hoped there were only three because otherwise there might be a structure swastika slapped down on Ward's Island somewhere on Google Earth.

Mr. Smith in his tailored suit had ensemble with a team outside the southern most corridor, which happened to be where we parked. A smile almost caught my mouth when I saw them, not because this guy looked like his dress and instinct were having separate identity crisis, but because of the squad behind him. There were four men and two women dressed in the more familiar black cargo fatigues and Kevlar vests of Enforcers. I actually recognized a few of them.

A woman named Bennett, who had voiced distaste for the Manhattan Chapter's experiments early on. George's uncle, who unfortunately was beginning to look beyond his age from stress even though he was only a little older than my brother. And the newly promoted Josh Dent standing straight backed with his carbine and trying not to smile at the sight of Connor in my arms.

"My name is Eunice Travers. I'm Director on this project."

"Which one? The disbanding or the time loop?"

Travers offered his hand to each of us, but he made the mistake of starting with me, which threw him off since I wouldn't take it. I didn't want to and I had a baby in my arms. Niko and Dante shook his hand, but the disorientation had already hit so he faltered in answering me. "I am the Director of the disbanding of Project Roman Ring, which has been separated from the destruction of unsanctioned projects in this facility."

He motioned to the squad behind him. "As your aware the Manhattan Chapter started the final stage of the Roman Ring Project. My job is to assist you in reversing the damage this project has caused, then proceeding to shut it down completely. The team behind me and myself are the only ones who will directly contact you. There are other teams working on getting the apparatus functional to reverse the project's success, but you will only be in contact with those present."

I shifted Connor to my other shoulder as he lazily woke. He was on my gun side now, but that was a better position for me to reach under him to pull it out anyway. Not that I would have to considering how much fire power I had around me to defend him right now.

"Didn't like me stealing your scientist I take it?"

Travers let a small smirk show through on his smoothly featured face. He was young, probably Niko's age, and handsome enough to a be a poster boy on recruitment flyers. "We want to resolve this and shut it down as quickly as you do, Caliban. To do that we need to make sure our teams is comfortable working with you and that you are comfortable working with them."

To our right, where the transport buses were, a tussle broke out. One burly man, that might have been a commander himself twenty years and a half a belly ago, had broken through the first line and was paying Red Rover with our bodyguards. The guy screamed curses, pointed and spat in our general direction. If he could, he might have thrown a useless Rom hex too if he knew one.

Josh stepped up beside me, blocking us from view. He squared himself with his back to me, neck stiff, and carbine raised to his shoulder. A precaution if the meathead managed to break the line. There was no need, a Taser took the security guard down as well as jolted one of the black shirts holding him. The chaos was settled and the procession of lab coats continued within seconds.

I nudged Josh's back to my elbow as he lowered his weapon. "Don't act like that was for heroics. You just came over here to hold him."

The smile he'd been trying to hold back for professionalism's sake broke free. Josh's hazel eyes flickered over to his boss for permission, but I was already handing Connor off to his savior. Once he'd woken up enough to see Josh next to me it was what the tike wanted anyway. Josh's carbine swung around to his back as he held Connor before him, whispered how big he'd gotten.

"Let us proceed inside. Away from this circus." Travers said. Bennett held the push door open for us without even a cue. "I can show you our progress on the Roman Ring apparatus and discuss some other loose ends left to us."

"Josh is on point," I said before any of us set foot into the building. A building, I had to remind myself, that we had been adamantly keeping Dante and Connor out of for a while now.

"Excuse me?" It was a legitimate question, not an exclamation of insult.

"Dent," I clapped my hand to Josh's shoulder. He was cooing at my son, unashamed. It was almost as cute as when Ishiah did it. "He may answer to you, but he's on point in all this. He's lead. Why? You ask? Because he's the only asshole I trust one hundred percent here."

Travers cast an almost unnoticeable glance at Samuel. I noticed it though. "Give me a break. Uncle Sammy threw me to the Auphe and nearly unmade the world by letting a half-Auphe gain control of a time machine gate –oh look, history repeating."

Samuel avoided my glare in an utterly Catholic-guilty manner. He'd come back to fix his mistake with Darkling, but I still didn't trust him. This though, this fuck up was another matter. "Relax, Samuel. I know you had nothing to do with this and I might trust you with my life now, but not my sons', not my families'."

He bowed his buzzed head, already peppered with premature gray stubble. I left him alone and Niko addressed Travers. "We don't know you or many in your squad. It's a welcomed gesture of goodwill that you would create affiliates catered to us, but the Vigil had never been trustworthy as a group. Josh Dent will be our liaison, as Cal says."

"Although he is an honorable and skilled young man, he is the most inexperienced—"

"He brought my son to me at the risk of life, limb, and career. He parted from his fiancé to make sure mine was safe. Honorable doesn't being to cut it," I snapped. I could see Josh gaping at me from the corner of my eyes. He held a fingerless-gloved hand to my son's soft head as if he was born to be a military father. "You're still an asshole," I added so he didn't a big head. "And he's on point."

Travers was quiet for a minute, staring me down with deep brown eyes that were almost black. He refocused on Josh as I took Connor back to give the guy a little more creditability as a bad ass, though I did think it hilarious seeing him holding a baby with a carbine looped around his back, wearing body armor and black fatigues.

There wasn't a verbal agreement, but eventually Travers eyes hooded and his eyebrows ticked in that 'oh well' sort of way. He waved Josh to take the lead after two Enforcers I didn't know swung in to keep the halls clear ahead of us.

Dante eased up to walk in front of me with Josh, while Niko and Travers took up the space behind me. Travers didn't have a weapon; his suit was too tapered to conceal. Outside of a small blade or an ankle holster, he was unarmed.

The rest walked in the spaces in front and behind, between when the width of the hall allowed I'd never explored this particular Vigil facility. It didn't even try to look like anything other than the laboratory it was. The main floor was all wide glass windows separated by the occasional electric door or support pillar. Inside, the rooms were will lit, but empty like a pharmaceutical company went bankrupt and everything was repo-ed. Even the bunsen burners.

The rooms were fashioned with fixed glass cabinets and long, cold, slabs of granite for experiments. Maybe this was the section where they pretended to hunt for a cure for cancer, while downstairs they hunted for a cure for paien.

"Moving out?" I commented, as we turned down another hall which looked exactly like the first.

"I suppose I should explain my job is also akin to that of an officer of Internal Affairs. The information Enforcer Dent supplied allowed me to finally step in a shut this place down." Travers took a step forward to walk in line with me. "I can't say that there aren't other facilities partaking in corrupt practices, but the Manhattan Chapter was one of the worst offenders and I appreciate your assistance in exposing them."

I stopped dead in the middle of the hall. Niko sensed it and eased his steps without bumping me, but the same didn't go for the guy behind my brother.

"My assistance?" I countered, trying to keep my rage levels down with Connor. The bugger always sensed them even more than Dante as a child and they made him tremble like a Chihuahua. "You know what they did to us. You know how this little angels and that handsome devil over there were born and you have the nerve to thank me for my assistance?"

Travers' lidded hooded again, only this time he wasn't as amiable. "I understand your anger, Caliban, but I will not apologize for action of one Chapter's unsanctioned by their superiors. I empathize, I do—"

"You empathize?"

"Cal," Josh shouldered in between Travers and me. He placed a hand on Connor's white hair. I felt the tremor a second later and checked my temper. "Do you blame me for what happened to Cassie?"

My jaw rolled and cracked when I clenched it. I knew what he was getting at. I didn't blame him so why would I blame Travers. Well, that came down the fact that I knew Travers wouldn't abandon his cause for a half-Auphe. Josh already had, twice. Her was more friend than Vigil and I didn't have many friends.

"I just want to get her back and be done with the Vigil."

Josh's mouth quirked up on one side. "We need you to kill Grimm too."

A small laugh hitched in my throat. "You just keep pushing, don't you?"

"Well, you want to kill him anyway, getting paid for it is a bonus."

I lifted my eyebrows, but it was Nik that chimed in. "You, the Vigil, are hiring us to assassinate Grimm?"

"And bring back the Harbinger," Travers added.

Another hot iron spark of anger hit. "For what?"

"For the sole reason that she doesn't belong to that time and we don't want her altering history."

Fair enough. If they thought I was bringing her back so they could continue experimenting on her they were dreaming. Dead and dreaming.

We started walking again and Josh took up the conversations. "Project Charlemagne, Nephilim, and the Gleipnir module have all been deemed too dangerous and unethical. They have been scrapped."

It was like he read my mind.

"Gleipnir," I muttered as I wiped off Connor's drool from my collarbone. He was happily gumming at my leather lapel. Nowhere near cutting a tooth, but more than likely bored or missing a teat. "That was what some guy called the mod on Cassie's neck. The gate-inhibitor."

"The Gleipnir module has ceased transmission. Either due to the distance or malfunction. Regardless it is an apparatus no longer in use. We have turned off the signal completely as of ten hours ago," Travers commented. "When Cassie returns we would like to set up an appointment to have the module removed."

I was both relieved and infuriated by that. It should have been never implanted and if they were going to take it out why couldn't it have been before this mess? Before Grimm got the best of her? I knew why. I knew the 'good' Vigil was making that decision, but I also knew I'd be in that OR with a gun to the surgeon's head the whole time.

We reached hard metal doors that obviously led to a freight or service elevator. Down to the hive. Josh pulled me to a sop; his hazel flickered to Niko, Dante, then back to me. "There was another level to the Gleipnir. They called it the Thviti. That was what they implanted in you."

"Gleipnir and Thviti," Niko hummed. "They likened the inhibitor and kill switch to the ties and anchor that fastened Fenrir to the ground until Ragnarok."

Josh ignored Niko's lesson as naturally as I did. He looked like he was about to choke on his own words though. "The Thviti is in Connor too."

Ice ran down my spine. I grasped Connor's nape so quickly that he made a startled complaint. I couldn't feel it under his skin, but then we hadn't noticed the one resting against my cerebellum either. I ran my fingertips down the soft skin of my son's nape.

"We can take it out today. Right now," Josh went on. He lifted his hand to touch Connor's back, but his hand hovered in hesitance and he dropped it back to his gun. "A healer surgeon is waiting three floors down in a prepared OR, but if you would like to go to Katherine we will not press the surgery."

"Where's the remote?" I growled. Nik had sent the remote and brain bomb for my Thviti to our tech-savvy contact Salamandier as soon as we yanked it out. Sal studied it, then destroyed it; we never asked how to disarm it.

"You said you trust me." Josh went into one of his cargo pockets and pulled out a plastic evidence bag containing bits of wire and plastic sections that might have been anything from a model toy race car to the remote that could kill my youngest instantly. "This is the remote, Cal. They had Director Travers and me standing watch as they dismantled it."

"They put a bomb in an infant's head," I snarled. I was containing the urge to tear out of here and gate every one of those pieces of trash outside to Tumulus, but it was a losing battle.

Josh swallowed hard, his eyes fell on Connor's wispy blond head. The rims of his lids reddened with restrained tears. "The surgeon who did it is dead…if that helps."

I stared at him for a moment, then tilted my face so my nose pressed to the pale little bundle's sweet smelling cheek. There was no limit to this lab's atrocities. They called me a monster and abomination, but they'd raped a defenseless woman, tortured her and stole her newborn child from her arms. They implanted a chip into a baby to explode his skull before a coherent though, be it benevolent or malevolent, could even form. Of all the things my Auphe genes whispered into my ear…none of them seemed as heinous.

And Josh. The knight in shining white armor underneath all that black. His reaction told me more than I needed to know. The steadiness of his voice even as his eyes welled. I knew if he had the opportunity he would have shot the surgeon and everyone who came up with the plan himself, but he hadn't. His position among them had been tenuous, but a rebellious act like that would have gotten him booted out if not killed.

I turned slightly to look at Samuel. He hadn't spoken a word since we arrived. Even Bennett had muttered a phrase or two to her comrades, but not a syllable from Uncle Sam. His uniform was buttoned up high on his neck, showing only a nick of raised scar tissue around the obstruction, judging by the thickness and width that went deep and curved across his neck.

"You killed him?" I asked. Samuel gave a resolute nod. He did and he'd do it again. "They slit your throat for it?"

"The Director of the Manhattan Chapter had his throat slit because he spoke to other Chapters of the projects here," Travers explained. "Barbaric and primitive. They healed him enough to keep him alive, but not to restore his voice. Enforcer King was transferred to Baltimore for killing Dr. Everett. Imprisoned." The new Director gave a political smile and reached out to pat Samuel's shoulder. "We transferred him out and gave him a promotion. He was on your side, as are we. Do you understand, Caliban?"

My eyebrow twitched as I read bullshit in that statement. "I'll take him to Katherine today," I answered and hoped he'd get that I didn't believe for one second we were on the same side from my bared teeth.

"I don't like it," Dante cut in before I could get the show on the road again. He pivoted and stood in front of me, then he held out his hands. "I'll take him. Now."

I lifted my eyebrows. "You take him home, you call Robin for back up, and _then _you go to Katherine's. Things might be quiet here, but there is still an albatross around our necks, yeah?"

Dante nodded emphatically and lifted Connor out of my arms. I didn't like him going off with his baby brother on his own after a gate split the sky a few days ago. I had this niggling feeling that the Auphe would be stirred up by that event and having my two little miracles running around on their own was just baiting the hook. "Be careful."

"Always."

He was gone in a blink, a gate, and across the empty space he occupied I caught the disapproving look Niko was giving me. "Hey, when you pop one out you get to make those decisions," I groused. Niko pursed his lips, but said nothing in retort. I nodded to the bag in Josh's hand. "You keep that and let's get this over with."

I waited for most of the squad to file into the elevator before I went in myself with Niko next to me. I tapped my foot to Samuel's boot. "You just got ten more trust points, Sammy," I glanced over at him and snorted. "And get some bottle dye or something you look like Denzel Washington."

Samuel smiled, genuinely, and shook his head. The elevator lurched and we descended into the bell of the hive.


	11. Chapter 11 - Caliban

**CHAPTER ELEVEN**

**CALIBAN**

There were more corridors in the sublevels, more florescent lights to give me a headache and more people staring as we passed to increase my urge to kill. I needed these idiots. I had to remind myself that. I needed them to fix the Ring and once I had Cassie back I could do exactly what Samuel did to the baby-killing doctor. Bullet to each and every one of their skulls.

Imaging the different spray patterns of blood painting the walls made me feel a little better. Niko pointedly nudging my shoulder to mine in comfort helped a lot more.

We were taken to a large freight elevator; the kind that showed the inner workings of the machine as we slowly coasted down. There was a silence ringing in the air as we rode. One pregnant with questions no one had the balls to speak. I wasn't in a particularly sharing mood so that was probably for the better.

Our stop opened the doors into a wide, yet somehow claustrophobic, metal hallway. It stretched long to both left and right with very few doors and none of them marked. Director Travers veered left in the lead and we followed, not far behind to a set of double doors opened wife to reveal a familiar room and more activity than any other space within the building. No one was moving in or out; just flitting about the main room, the side observation deck, and lifted control room like an army of little humming birds.

There were two guards stationed at the entrance, but other than that the protective detail had lessened tremendously since I was last here. It was mostly scientists, including Mr. Roger who paled upon seeing me.

The grated floors had been sprayed down and the windows and machinery scrubbed down, but the scent of blood still hung in the air and some mechanics still sported bullet holes. Many had been replaced and others were just relieved of their tattered casings leaving wire and gears and motherboards exposed.

"We have teams working in shifts twenty four hours around the clock," Travers explained. "Most of the machinery has been replaced with what we had at our disposal, but we are still waiting for many integral parts."

"What _can_ you tell us?" Niko cut in. My brother stepped down onto one grated stair leading into the epicenter, then turned to address Travers before he went on with useless process. "About the result, I mean. Mainly, was the Ring successful and when will you have it running?"

Travers waved to one of the scientists and a thirty-odd looking woman with hair streaked lavender walked over with a stiff gate. She was cute, thin, and looked at me with curiosity rather than fear. "Emelia, could you brief the Leandros' on what information we have gathered?"

Emelia gave Travers an irritated look and sighed. "The Ring functioned properly to the extent that it enhanced the power of a singular transportal worm hole. Readings show an influx of barometric pressure and kinetic velocity. Electromagnetic polarities shifted two degrees and the levels of oxygen and nitrogen increased, but we were unable to adequately sample the atmosphere or climate of the exterior of the transportal rift."

I glared, though I did appreciate the dripping sarcasm more than the overt brown nosing Travers had been shoved up my ass. "English for an eight year old, Fluttershy."

The sarcasm went dry and she rolled her brown eyes. "The big ass gate opened, but the computers couldn't sample the air on the other side. Your buddy didn't have it open long enough."

"_Not_ my buddy and what does that mean?"

"Atmosphere changes each year and there are certain markers we can track and pinpoint which year and sometimes which continent. Without those readings we don't know where they are or when they are."

I raked a hand over my face and groaned. "In other words, you know nothing."

"I know the more he makes me repeat nothing the longer it will take to fix this fuck up."

I scoffed, almost laughing at her snarky tone. I was beginning to like her. Niko stepped in, being only a step away from her as it were. "Emelia, could you tell us how long it will take to get the Ring functioning again?"

Emelia glanced back at her team and moment, tucking a purple lock of hair behind her ear. "Five hours until we get the parts we need. Ten, maybe fifteen hours after that to get it running, but if we don't figure out where it's taking you it might be moot."

"I'll take my chances," I countered.

"Cal," Niko started, then stepped back up onto the risen catwalk that trailed in a semi-circle around the apparatus. He leveled me with a meaningful stare. "I know you want to get Cassie back and I'm right there with you, but we don't know where she is or if she even crossed over successfully. We need to confirm that it's safe—"

"There is no way to tell if is safe, Nik."

"Cal, you're willing to make this jump and possibly make those boys orphans without a second thought?"

I took in a deep breath, deep enough I felt my ribs stretch. I hated it when he was right. But I knew I was right too. "Nik, if it did work and Grimm is using a me five years younger as a punching back, it won't matter if my boys have two parents or five. He kills me and they never existed."

"May I get back to work now?" Emelia interrupted, then quickly went back to her consol when Travers waved her off. I watched her and the dozen others trying to get the gate of doom up and running. Niko leaned to the railing overlooking the grated floor.

"What the hell else are we going to do?" I asked my brother. He didn't need it said, didn't need it asked, but the question was devastating enough to be spoken aloud. He took in a deep breath, eyes on the hustle of bodies in front of us. Pieces of metal being ratcheted up, full of bullet holes and stained blood, to be replaced by that which was shiny and new. Scientist huddled over monitors and readouts trying to make heads or tails of information I couldn't comprehend even in a dream where I was Einstein.

Where did they even get this technology? It seemed otherworldly, more advanced than fiction and certainly not right for human hands.

I shook my head and turned to Travers. "Contact us when its running and your best make that yesterday, because if you idiots really did make a time machine and sent Grimm back there, you are probably even more screwed than I am. And by you I mean the whole damned human race."

There was a party at the penthouse when we came home. Entirely a surprise too. I expected Promise, Dante, and Connor. Wouldn't have been shocked to see Goodfellow or Riordyn, but the scent of Wolf lingered in the hall caused me to jab my key in the lock a little roughly and tear the door open.

The Kin had left us alone since Cassie took gates and fire to their furry asses two years ago. A few of the packs had gotten ballsy enough to try and hire Nik and I for one reason or another, but they backed off when I laughed in their faces. Delilah hadn't even pursued her threat to refocus her annoying stalking on Dante. No one from the Kin tired to kill us or infiltrate our home in a while, thankfully that streak hadn't ended today.

There was a Wolf on the couch, bouncing my little Aupheling baby boy on his knee with one hand cupped behind his floppy head. This Wolf couldn't hurt Connor if he tried though, his nature just wouldn't allow it. His eyes flickered over to me, half hidden by a nest of ginger-brown hair more in need of a trim than my own. He grinned boldly. "We leave for a few months and everything goes to hell. When did this happen?"

"Conceived last year," I answered, since Catcher was referring to Connor with that last line. I eased my hand off my gun and looked around for Catcher's cousin; like Nik and me they traveled as a unit. "Because it's been _years_ not months since we last saw the Jeftichew pack."

Rafferty was on the balcony, a phone to his ear and a pace to his steps. Either he was being chewed out or chewing some one out on the other line.

"I heard about Cassie," Catcher continued. He coddled Connor against his chest as if he shouldn't utter her name in front of the baby. Dante stood between the two Wolves like a sentinel. Last he saw them and their traveling circus of a pack, he'd been barely two, so I doubted he remembered (or trusted) them. Good thing, Promise was home or we might have come home to two wolf pelts on our living room floor. That was if Rafferty hadn't had enough time to stop Dante's breath with a look.

Catcher and Rafferty left not long after I'd been told my lover and son were dead. One would think that would add to my abandonment issues, but considering the healer and his once All-Wolf cousin had ducked out often before it hadn't phased me. What surprised me was that Catcher hasn't convinced his pack to visit sooner; he'd developed a bit of a crush on Cassie and their Skypeing conversations when I wasn't around couldn't do enough to sate that sort of thing. Maybe he knew I'd get pissy at his presence or maybe he was trying to wean himself off of her. Question was: why were they here now?

"If shit's going down somewhere else they can deal with it themselves. We have more than enough garbage to sift through here," I commented. Catcher gave me a baffled look so I reiterated. "Why are you here?"

The bright smile returned. "Believe it or not we're just passing through for a visit. I hadn't heard from Cassie for a while, so I was concerned. She never told me about this little guy, you know? I feel a little hurt. Didn't tell me about teenage dreamy over there either."

"We kept them secret from anyone outside this penthouse," I explained, astonished and proud that Cassie would be guarded enough to not even tell Catcher. "But while you're here. There's a chip in Connor's head—"

"Already done, the chip is on the kitchen island." Catcher beamed. "Also he's one hundred percent genetically yours. Rafferty checked."

I'd been easing down to sit across from the ruddy-haired Wolf when he said that. Suddenly my legs gave out and I pretty much fell into my seat. My chest ached like a paintball hit it dead on, short-lived and completely non-fatal, but it still hurt. It'd been a running joke, a defense mechanism, for a while now. Call up Maury, whose the father?

Caliban Leandros, you _are_ the father. I could hear it in my head and it made me smile. I hadn't known how much that meant to me until it released a chain around my heart. I was Connor's father. One of the most powerful, if not thee most powerful, healer in the world said so. "Thanks, Catcher."

"Need to give you some good news, hm?"

I ran a hand over my face. The fatigue that had been plaguing me since I'd lost Cassie again was hitting like an energy drink wearing off.

"He's adorable," Catcher prattled on. When he was stuck as a four-legged wolf after his cousin healing his cancer went haywire all Catcher had was a pencil and a laptop. Even through the drool on the keyboard he was a 'talker', now he just seemed excited he had a voice that could form syllables. "You can't tell who he'll look like yet, but look at those big gray eyes." Connor gave a toothless smile for Catcher's baby talk. "Hah, no that smile is Cassie's for sure. The Leandros men don't smile unless they're killing something, isn't that right?"

Niko had disappeared back to his side of the penthouse when we came in. Not as a slight to our werewolf friends, but because he had caught Salamandier on his cell around the nineteenth floor and wanted to finish debriefing him on what the Vigil had said. I could still hear his muffled voice trailing from his and Promise's living room.

I patted the seat beside me to get Dante to sit. My elder son sat down on the edge of the cushion, still cautious and distrusting. It didn't matter that my gesture accredited Catcher with my trust. Or that he knew these two had saved the world with us once and pulled my ass, and his mother's ass, from Hades several times. They were not family, not in Dante's mind.

"Dante says you went to the Vigil. Any good news there?"

I gave a non-committal shrug at Catcher's question. Rafferty came in from the Balcony, giving me a nod before leaning to the armrest near Dante. It was the best position for him, since he knew my older son was wired and getting close to Connor would only aggravate. Being a top notch healer, Rafferty could probably hear my son's muscles twanging for a fight or his blood pressure rising with every finger Catcher touched to Connor.

"The other Chapters are getting involved now. I saw Boston, Baltimore, and Philly, there were probably more, but I didn't make a list. They're shutting down the Manhattan Chapter, burning all their projects and research like a front business before audit. So no more experimenting on the paien. Suppose that's good news."

"We should make a monument of you for all the times you've saves us," Catcher was still going strong with the baby voice, but he was only half joking which rewarded him with just a glare from me instead of a lashing comeback.

"Unfortunately, Project Roman Ring was a go before they cleaned house. Now they need my help in setting things right. Bringing Cas home."

"I never thought humans would be stupid enough to attempt time travel, let alone with a bomb that has the potential to make Earth a hell he rules," Rafferty commented in his gruff way. He was an amazing healing, but had zero beside manner. I knew; I was his patient more times than I'd like to admit.

"It was bound to happen at some point," Catcher added, dropping the baby talk. "It's been a source of fascination for eons. But which theory is correct? Self-consistent or changeabl? Plastic time or chaotic time? Has the future already changed when we woke, but we have no memory or a different past or is it an alternate history due to Grimm and Cassie's appearance in a different chronological point?"

"You're secretly a sci-fi nerd, aren't you? Have an Enterprise model under glass. The Twilight Zone box set on your shelf."

"My knowledge of geekery might help you out right now. Don't knock it."

"Is your knowledge based on actual theory or Back to the Future and _The Sound of Thunder_?"

Catcher made a face at me, sticking out his tongue. Connor squealed and laughed at the motion, then bopped the Wolf in the nose with a flailing fist. The laughter caught on, leaving Dante the only one with a scowl.

"Catch, give the pup back to his brother before he develops an ulcer," Rafferty commanded. He even ticked his finger from his cousin to Dante like a parent telling a child to return a toy not theirs.

Catcher pouted, but complied. Dante's eyes immediately flickered to me once Connor was in his arms, pleading. "He needs to be fed."

I almost laughed. It was too soon to feed him, but if Dante wanted to lie to get out of associating with werewolves he certainly had reason. I waved him off and watched him retreat into his room with his baby brother.

"I believe he might be the most polite half-Auphe I've ever met," Rafferty commented. He sat on the couch beside me. "The moment Promise handed Catcher the boy I could tell he wanted to go for his throat. He refrained and even allowed Catch to keep playing with Connor because it would be rude to snatch him away."

"His neck was snapped by an Evati Wolf when he was two, pretty sure he has legitimate reason to be wary when his three month old brother is being held by a werewolf, but yeah, considering how low the bar for Auphe politeness is set he is the most courteous of us all."

Niko emerging from his and Promise's side of our pseudo mansion. He greeted the cousins and ] politely asked how their pack was doing. Apparently, Rafferty had been on the phone with his official girlfriend, Mia, on the balcony. She wasn't pleased that he left her with her two rambunctious pups that just turned six themselves. It was amusing to hear he was suffering through unexpected fatherhood too; made me feel like I wasn't alone in my fumbling. We needed to start a club. Niko could join in a few months.

"What can we do to help with the situation with Cassie?" Catcher asked once the idle chit-chat petered off.

I took in a deep breath and leaned my head back on the couch. There wasn't much to do. Nothing much we could do, at least not until they got the Ring working. Catcher and Rafferty being here was a nice distraction, but it was only that. Cassie was still gone and our lives were still in peril for it. "Stick around on stand by? We might need a world of healing if things go Grimm's way."

"Five years," Rafferty muttered. He glanced over at me. "I had pressed the serotonin syndrome on your brain at that point, hadn't I?"

I nodded. "The Vigil chose a time when I'm at my most vulnerable, whether on purpose or just because five is their unlucky number. Either way, if Cassie doesn't protect me I'm as good as roadkill against Grimm."

"Well, you still exist McFly. I suppose that is a good sign," Catcher added. "When will they have the amplifier running?"

"Soon," Niko said. "A day, maybe forty-eight hours? Hopefully, it will be soon enough."

We fell silent after that comment. Suddenly seeing old friends and catching up no longer eased the depression of knowing I might not wake up alive tomorrow. Or worse, wake up in a cave somewhere breeding Grimm's new world like a caged dog in an illegal puppy mill.


	12. Chapter 12 - Caliban

**CHAPTER TWELVE**

**CALIBAN**

I woke up, that was one thing I had denied to be hopeful for. I woke up to the very unhappy wail of my son; that was also unexpected and despite being much earlier than I wanted to wake it was a wonderful sound.

I rolled off the bed, wiping sleep from my eyes and coming to his crib. "Morning, little champ," I grumbled. "There are kinder ways to wake me."

Connor kept crying, face red and scrunched up. So help me it was kinda cute. I lifted him up, cradling to my shoulder. The crying didn't quite. Probably disrupting the sleep of the entire complex. There was no way my family would sleep through this. I supposed after having my first son so quiet, barely making a loud coo when he was discontent, I deserved this. The Leandros' were obviously born in pairs. Dante was the calm, level-headed older brother and Connor was destined to be the loud-mouthed upstart.

I grinned down at him and his wrinkled face even knowing this. Actually elated by this. Connor only softened his sobbing when he was free of his dirty diaper and bottom cleaned. Then it was small whimpers and bobbing fists.

Wrapping him up in a fuzzy blue blanket, I hoisted him to my shoulder and wandered into the living area. It was still rather early in the morning. Earlier than even Niko was up, which was saying something. The drapes in the apartment were almost always drawn tightly to spare Promise a mid-morning burn, but if the sun was up warm light would still filter through, safe enough to cross her skin without injury and casting a steady glow through the living room, which was perfect dim lighting for matinee movie watching.

At this hour, the light was blue and murky. Hardly enough to see your feet in front of you, but I had no trouble padding over the lush carpet since the vibrant blare of a computer screen was lighting up the walls. I paused near the kitchenette and frowned at the dark head blocking some of the light in silhouette. "Dante," I murmured, walking over to the couch where he was camped. My frown deepened upon seeing Riordyn curled up on the couch next to my son, head propped up on Dante's thigh.

No sleeping together, my ass. Friends didn't cuddle like that, even with clothes on.

"What are you doing?"

Dante peeled bleary eyes away from the computer screen, even with the harsh blue light I could see the rims of his eyes were red and there were shadows beneath them not all attributed to the under glow. He pulled out an ear bud connected to the computer and waited for me to repeat my question. "Have you been up all night?"

"I was looking at some of the Vigil's research. Sal's too, but…it's difficult."

"I'd imagine, but you can't sacrifice your sleep. There is a small army working in shifts trying to figure this out."

"They're human," Dante replied flatly.

I reached out and ruffled a hand over his dark hair, understanding his reservations there. His distrust in humans was as garnered as his distrust in werewolves. They had, aside from select few, don't nothing good for us. It was humans that captured his mother. Humans that tortured his family and humans that tore us apart. To Dante, humans might have been no better than Auphe.

"Did you figure anything out?" I asked, reaching down and yanking at Riordyn's ear. The swarthy-skinned pint-sized nuisance let off a pained whine, coming out of sleep enough to follow my leading motion before his ear was torn off. Once he was sitting up and away from my son, I let go.

Riordyn rubbed at his accosted ear. "What is your problem, I was just sleeping."

I glared pointedly, knowing full well by the rumpled state of both their attire it hadn't been only sleeping before the morning hours crept in. Rio pouted and let his narrow shoulders sag. "I didn't even touch him much."

I hated tricksters. I really did. It was amazing this brat was still alive and Goodfellow's long-suffering desensitization was probably the only reason for that. I pinched at the white streak of hair at his nape hard. "Go get Connor a bottle."

"Fine, fine, geez," The púca huffed off into the kitchen with the weary steps of one still climbing out of the dredges of sleep. I could hear him grumbling about my attitude, but he needed to check his own before I neutered him the hard way.

"I didn't sleep with him," Dante offered with his usual simplistic tone and wide-eye gaze. It was quickly reversed when Rio turned on the light in the kitchen and Dante's contracted pupils were forced to dilate. He squinted and retracted rubbing his eyes. "It was just oral."

I nearly fell against the back of the couch. Goodfellow's desensitization only went so far and that was quite a few strides over that line. "Dante," I moaned. I set Connor's rump on the back ledge of the couch so I could lean to the fabric with a hand to my face.

What was I going to do when Connor started to get a sex drive? The little bundle in my arms was going to be growing up with a puck for a surrogate uncle. If that didn't spell trouble for me I didn't know what did.

"Did you figure anything out?" I asked with my hand still covering my face.

"About oral sex?"

"Dante!" I snapped. "Seriously." I could hear Rio snickering the kitchen, but in my weariness was able to ignore him and the urge I had to rip out his tongue, then choke him with it. "About the Roman Ring. About their research."

"Oh, maybe." He pulled out the other ear bud and handed them to me. When Riordyn returned with a warm bottle of formula in hand, I passed Connor off to the púca and put in the earphones.

"It's a recording of the incident," Dante explained. "I've isolated the ambient noise running through the gate. Listen."

Eyes narrowed in baffled confusion as I pondered the odd and incredible intelligence Dante inherited from some branch of our genetics that skipped me, I listened to the recording closely. Beneath muffled screams and apocalyptic gunfire, he had pulled out a strange wash of sounds both white-noise grating and familiar. There was the soft lap of water to a pier, the clanking chime of a buoy, the distant symphony of cars honking, and most apparent the whining blare of a fire alarm. My lips fattened as I motioned for him to play the clip again. It wasn't an engine or the alarm of a firehouse. That was a fireboat; it was a distinct sound slightly lower than a fire truck and diluted by the water's surface.

"It's a fireboat horn," Dante told me. I could see the first threads of excitement widening his gray eyes. "It is safe to say that the gate would open on similar ground for simplicity and safer foundation. The Vigil used the coordinates of the ground above the facility as a basis as their facility hadn't been completed five years ago. Granted that is assuming Grimm wouldn't alter the path for his own gain, but even he might be wise enough not to tilt the scales on an already precarious risk. The Vigil might choose to stay on Ward's Island to keep away from civilians, fewer witness."

"What does the fireboat mean, Dante," I pressed. I spared a glance over at Rio to see how he was doing with Connor and stiffly told myself that he did not look more at home with holding the little guy and rocking him back and forth with a spring in his heels than I did. I would not, for one second, consider Dante's annoying boyfriend either cute or sweet; I'd promised myself that the moment he made eyes at my boy.

Of course when he wasn't annoying me, when his features were soft and his smile warm as he gazed down at Connor suckling on his bottle, I wondered where all my hostility was actually coming from. Then the little bastard caught my eyes and grinned with the mischievousness of a fox creeping toward a hen house. I dropped the ear buds in Dante's lap and pulled up to reclaim my youngest. "Give."

Pouting like a scolded puppy, Rio let me take Connor back and slapped a burp rag onto my shoulder with a little extra snap. "You have issues, Aupheling."

"Do _not_ call me, Aupheling, you overgrown Bronnie."

"Dad," Dante urged, calling me back before I decked the shapeshifting colt in his perfect smile.

"Fireboat."

Dante nodded. "The fireboat. That night there was a ship fire on water near Ward's Island and the 343 fire boat was dispatched to respond."

"So?" I adjusted Connor against my side, which had him grunt and whine when it jostled the teat from his mouth. Just like his dad, grumpy when a meal was interrupted. I helped him get a hold back on the nipple and held the bottle again so he could eagerly down the rest of the formula. "Dante, this is New York City, there will be fires, we're surrounded by water, there will be fireboats."

"The bunker where the Roman Ring was formed is too well insulated for that to have been ambient sound from beyond the facility," Dante defended.

"Even if what you caught is from the opposite side of the gate that only tells us I'll be dumped into a city that has a good possibility of being Manhattan. Which yeah, that's great, but, it's not worth messing up your eyes and losing sleep over."

Dante huffed, actually huffed and put his laptop down on the coffee table in the slightest of tantrums. It reminded me of how he used to jerk his little fists around when I didn't understand what he wanted when he was an infant. It was adorable. As was the more teenage styled crossing of his arms and slouching his seat. "343, Dad."

"Is that a secret code or something?"

"No," Niko answered from the darkened threshold of the other side of the penthouse. He walked out of the shadows smoothly, fully dress and showered for the day. He was wearing sweats and a hooded jacket though, so he'd obviously been planning on a run. His own gray eyes were on my elder son as he approached on silent feet. "343 is a NYC fireboat. One that hadn't even been in the water five years ago."

Dante edged forward with a nod. "The sound clip is from inside the gate. At the same time 343 was dispatched here, it was dispatched on the other side of the gate, with a boat that was not in service during the time they were targeting."

"You're saying that Grimm and Cas are still here?"

Dante frowned deeply. "That is a possibility, but I believe they would have been noticed. More probable…is that the gate…" His round eyes glistened and he turned forward in his chair, hand clenching at his jeans. Of all the blunt words that flowed from his mouth as easy as a McDonald's order he couldn't say this, which meant the most probable outcome was that Grimm and Cassie never made it to the other side and were scattered to the wind in atoms.

I set Connor's empty bottle on the cushions behind Dante and pulled the little boy in to kiss his soft white-blond hair. Niko was fixing a very hard look on me from across the living room, no doubt revisiting his argument that I was dooming these boys to be without mother _and_ father if I risked the leap myself.

"There is also a possibility that it is an alternate dimension, so inherently close to ours, where events coincide," Dante offered meekly.

"That one might not be as far off as you would think," Riordyn chimed in. He eased next to Dante on the couch, taking his wrist a squeezing lightly. "The stories that are told, mythology and paien fact, there are many worlds out there. Asgard, Hades, Olympia, Firdaws Pardis, Duat…you've already been to one." He glanced back at me. "Both of you have."

"Tumulus," I murmured.

"The world where the Auphe retreated when humanity became too numerous," Niko added.

Connor let off an impressive belch as his own two cents, lucky it was into the burp rag because a little formula foamed up from his smacking lips with bubbles. I wiped it off the corners of his mouth with a grimace. Then contemplated out little brainstorm aloud. "So not likely the past, possibly death, and hopefully Asgard?"

"Not Asgard. Although that might be a world in existence that we cannot travel to it by normal means, it is extremely improbable that they would have a contraption, be it mechanical or organic, which would produce the same cadence at the same frequency as a fireboat."

I patted Dante's head for his ramblings, letting him come to the conclusion that I was being facetious without a condescending remark. He got it by the lowering of his head after a small nod of acknowledgement. "Hopefully Asgard," he said softly.

Niko was giving me that look again and though I would have much rather have the conversation with Dante in private and _not _with Rio sitting vigil at my son's side, it needed to be done. I nodded in disgruntled agreement to Nik and leaned against the back of the couch again.

Changed and now full, Connor took a playful dive out of my arms onto the couch. He would have face planted into the soft cushions, but his brother's arms locked around his little body before he even tipped. Big brother wrapped the blanket more tightly around Connor and held him against his chest. Dante's sudden silence and the knot in his dark eyebrows indicated he knew what I was about to say. Either that or he was doing quantum physics in his head. I could never tell with Dante.

"Dante—"

"Let me go," he cut in. Gray eyes earnest and for a brief moment fearful. "I had to grow up without both of you. I don't wish that for my brother. If something were to happen, if the Roman Ring destroys molecular structure and dissolves a body into a million pieces…" he stopped himself when his voice cracked and grasped his brother's head to his heart. Or where his heart would be if he were human. He took in two long breaths before managing to finish. "Better me dead than you."

Riordyn gripped at Dante's thigh, casting a forlorn gaze at me as if pleading for me to discount that. And what father wouldn't? Other than mine…or Niko's or Cassies' and, if Hob really was technically Goodfellow's dad, him too. Oh, and Ishiah's dick of a father…wow, we didn't have very good father figures in our lives.

I guess that was my job now.

I stroked my hand over Dante's brow, pushing back his short brown hair, then ruffling it. "That is the worst lie you have ever told me."

"It's not a lie! You are his father—"

"And I'm yours as well. What father would allow his son to dive into a molecular wood chipper to spare his own life? I'll tell you what father –every father we have ever known. I will not be added to that list. And I didn't need a father, because my family was right there, always. My brother. And he will be here for you, just as you will be there for you brother, because to me that is a whole lot more than a father."

I broke away from those tearful gray eyes, braced both elbows to the back of the couch and covered my face. "I'm going to need you there for Niko too, because he's going to be a right mess."

"Cal, this is insane," Niko hissed and took two more steps into the living room. His hand went to the recliner, trying to steady himself. "If we know it isn't the past we can wait. We can research the Roman Ring more and—"

"And what Nik?" I dropped my hands brushing fingers over Connor's head as it bobbed to stay awake, then Dante's again when I pushed off the couch. I went to my brother. Stood before him with a stiff back and arms crossed. "What good would waiting do? What good would research do? These guys have been working on this thing for years. Do you really think they'd just jump out of the plane with Grim and six humans and hope the parachutes were made of nylon? They tested this thing all they could. That's what scientists do, they get off on it."

"They rushed the program because of us."

"By weeks maybe. You saw that thing. It was ready to go."

Niko shifted on his feet, fingers clenching into fists at his sides. "We have time now. I know you have no patience—"

"No, I don't. And what makes you think we have time? Just because we're pretty sure it isn't the past, how can we know that this alternate world isn't killing Cassie? That Grimm isn't killing her." I grasped at his shoulders, giving them a shake. "Right now, our options are go for it or leave her behind. Are you seriously pressing—"

"Yes," Niko answered sharply. I pulled back, hoping he'd read my mind wrong this time, but he shook his head and plowed on. "Yes, I would rather you leave her behind. Cassie's amazing and I…I adore her, but you are my brother. For my entire life you have been the reason I am here."

I swallowed hard. It was unusual to see emotions written so clearly on Nik's face. The wrenched brow of guilt and pain. The twitch in the side of his mouth for fear and remorse. Gray eyes hooded in uncertainty.

"Well, that needs to change," I countered. We had a family now. He had a kid on the way, a woman he loved, and two nephews in desperate need of a role model better than me. And he knew this.

"I don't plan to die for this, Niko," I went on and glanced back at the other pair of gray eyes gazing at me. The third pair had drifted closed as Connor went back to sleep. "I plan to get my lover back and keep this family strong together. The only reason I'm saying any of this is in case. Just like in case I walk out the door and get hit by a bus."

I smacked Nik's arm and flashed a smile at my boys. "I'm doing this. I'm doing this as soon as that worm hole is ready. And I'm coming back with their mom. And that's that."

Niko nodded resolutely, in control of his own mask again. "You better."

"Yeah, but you better do something for me. If he breaks my son's heart while I'm gone." I pointed at the unwelcomed púca behind me. "You kill him."

Nikos' mouth twitched again, this time in a smile. "Of course."

"Hey, I have been nothing but compassionate and supportive this whole time!" Rio exclaimed. I chucked the burp rag at him. Square in the face. Ten points extra for it being puke side down.

We were called in that night. Just under thirty hours it took them to finish the job. None of the lab coats seemed pleased when Dante revealed his conclusions from the sound bites. During the last preparation, a small team huddled off to one console to listen to my son's brilliant findings and run tests. One of them even slammed their headphones to the ground screaming like a lunatic that he hadn't slept for more than an hour and the urgency was for naught.

I watched his tantrum from a balcony view. Leaned against the railing next to Niko and snickering as the man started pulling out his hair and stomping on the grates like Godzilla.

I hadn't called to tell the science team or even Travers that it was unlikely I'd be doing the time warp. I wanted them to finish this shit quickly and the best way was to let them think they might be Auphe slaves in the morning if they let Grimm remain in the past. Even taking away his ability to alter the future he still had my lover, my Cassie. Maybe the remaining peons of the Manhattan Chapter didn't care two licks if Castiella was sacrificed in an experiment, but I sure as hell did. So run my little minions, type and ratchet until your fingers bleed.

Dante, who had been aiding the small conglomeration of scientist listening to the tell-tale fireboat, shifted around the strung-out man in the center of the inactive ring. Eyeing him in caution. My boy must have saw something I hadn't, or he could read crazy better than me, because the moment I caught that shift from disoriented crazy to focused-on-my-son hostile Dante already had his gun out. He didn't need it though. With a quick turn and a taut arm, Dante slammed his wrist into the bridge of the charging man's nose. Legs flew out from under him and he slammed to the grates, out cold.

The leucistic wings spread like a falcon from Dante's back, shaking as a warning to the others.

The scientists either watched in awe from their stations or backed up. There was a heavy sigh behind me, I knew was from Josh. "You can go clean up the mess. Dante won't hurt you."

With irritation and a grumpy look at me, Josh and another of his team walked down to the center of the ring to haul the unconscious scientist out of the way and probably make sure he didn't choke on his spewing broken nose.

Dante walked up the stairs to the outer ring with us, tucking his wings away and still looking behind him while Josh cleaned up. "It seemed they weren't as efficient with their shifts as they claimed," my son mumbled.

I snorted, not regretting my minor trickery for one second. The men with guns monitoring my family as much as the scientists, might have claimed temporary allegiance to me and mine, but the majority of the white coats were Manhattan Chapter. The assholes that started this, the schmucks that thought they could leash an Auphe and conquer the world. They could drop from sleep deprivation and be murdered by Freddy Krueger in the dreamscape and I couldn't care less. No, that's a lie. I would be ecstatic. Popping popcorn, kicking my feet up, and watching them burn ecstatic.

For that they'd done, they deserved much worse than a few missed siestas.

Which might have been why Travers' crew wasn't brothering to read us the riot act. Not telling us to behave or play nice. They other chapters knew full well what sick things Manhattan had been brewing in their easy-bake ovens. Better than I did, since I was sure they catalogued the experiments, at least with an abstract, before incineration. The Vigil knew what lengths their brother chapter had stretched to and they didn't like it either. So punch, kick, and scare the shut out of these traitors Leandros clan. I had a feeling the armed team would only step in when a heart stopped beating.

"How much time we got left?" I called over the din of the ants bustling below us. There was no immediate answer. I figured firing a round into the ceiling wasn't the best tactic after the firefight this place had seen before, so I settled for good old shouting; it might not have been in English and there was only one other language I knew –vaguely knew…knew enough to threaten to rip their intestines out and dance them into the grates if they didn't respond.

The room, as massive as it was, fell dead silent. More than a few hearts stopped beating for a moment or two, so more than a few MPKs were leveled in my direction.

"That seems a bit extreme," Dante comment. He took Connor from Promise's arms –because no one listened to me when I said only Dante should come with me, so it became a family outing. The only reason I even wanted Dante there was because I needed someone here to re-open the gate to let his mom and I back through, preferably with Grimm's head. That didn't stop Promise and Niko from taking a late ferry out to meet us on Ward's Island with Connor.

My youngest whined with his sweet little face screwed up and red. Obviously, Connor didn't appreciate the nails on broken glass dulcet tones of the Auphe language. I leaned in to kiss his forehead, assuring him his father was still there. Still warm and flesh and blood and would never harm him.

"When will the apparatus be ready?" Dante repeated for me, rocking his brother back calm. Even Niko was glaring at me for my outburst, pulling a hand away from an accosted ear.

"I'm losing patience," I grumbled.

"When have you ever had any?"

"Twenty minutes," a voice called over the intercom. There were a lot of scientist stowed away in the glass enclosed observation room, but I saw the lavender tint of the speaker's hair and knew it was Emelia.

"Twenty minutes," I echoed softly to myself. I leaned over the railing to shout to the flock of white coats again. "How long until it recharges?"

No one answered again, but it was more for confusion. Frightened confusion. Dante understood and reiterated for me. "What is the duration of time between available cycles of activation?"

The intercom piped up again. "You got seventy-two hours to get it done, slick. If you don't return we won't be sending the Nephilim in."

The tightening of Dante's jaw said otherwise, but I had to hold out hope Nik would stop my son before he made that mistake. One of the other scientists, paler than an albino ferret and just as weasel-like, reached up to hand me a black watch. He instructed me to start the countdown as soon as I entered the new atmosphere and watch it carefully. Seventy-two hours.

I turned to my sons when the watch was in place and kissed them both on the forehead. Offered Promise a hug and Nik a familiar nudge. "I'll be back soon. And someone better be here with a cheesesteak when I get back."


	13. Chapter 13 - Cal

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

ƆȺȽ

Never before had I had the opportunity to feel exactly how a pinball in an old gear and coil pinball machine felt…I would have lived my life happier never having to experience it.

I groaned, spat out some blood from my torn mouth, and leaned heavily against the brick wall my head had met just a second ago. It was a high school bullying at its worst and even set on the abandoned playground of a grade school. Four square and hop-scotch lines were spray painted under my knees. Eons ago kids probably played ball against the brick wall before the internet and smart phones blew physical activity into the history books.

Kids probably still got taken the shit out of by bullies after school, but even I wasn't used to this. I'd always been an asshole even before puberty. Classmates avoided me rather than took me on like they sense I'd be the next Charles Manson or maybe just shoot up the school if they pissed me off.

I was an asshole, not psychotic, but I let them believe what they wanted and if they did try to take me out back it never ended well for them. So bully-beating was new. Monster beatings were not so uncommon, but this fight wasn't for territory, or because I killed their cousin for killing six other people's cousins, or even good old fashion dominance struggles. Well, not entirely.

This was a game. A game bullies liked to play. No point, no prize, all they got out of it was a semi when the blood dripped from my nose.

I pushed up on the brick wall, getting my feet under me. Breathing hurt like hell. They'd fractured my previously mending ribs, probably on purpose. "If you're going to kill me, get on with it. I'm getting bored."

I was given twin smiles, glittering with metal. Damn, that was creepy. Both of them wore those made-to-order needle grills, mimicking the relatives he wished to be better than. I didn't know how he, they, tracked me. I hadn't seen hide nor bae from Grimm since out knock down drag out at Fort Tilden I knew he'd be back, but I didn't think he'd be bringing Tweedledum from the other side of the looking glass with him to corner me on a playground for a throw-back after-school ass-kicking.

"Not dead, Caliban. Broken," Grimm snarled at me. They looked like twins, but at least this one still had all that shaggy length to his hair. So I knew the one trying to kick me in my solar plexus was the Grimm of my world. I'd purposefully gave him that opening, dodged, and the flat sole slammed against the wall. I brought down my elbow on his kneecap as hard as I could.

There was a satisfying pop and Grimm hopped away from me with a vicious growl. I was back on my knees anyway; that move sent a violent jolt of pain over my right side that I felt in my teeth. My vision flashed white for a moment.

I lifted my arms to block an attack I knew would happen, but the rush of movement ceased at the sharp command from behind. "No. Wait."

I blinked away the colorful dots and rested my back to the wall. Other Grimm, the one with the buzz cut and scarred head, had been keeping out of the pummeling for the most part. Once they'd disarmed me and figured out that my gates weren't what they used to be he'd backed off. Granted, last he saw me, our world Grimm was fighting a half-Auphe with a three gate maximum. Never told him that, but it was a bit obvious something was up this time when I was disarmed and tossed to the ground without a gate in defense.

They adapted to the limitation. Neither Grimm had traveled during this fight except for the beginning to get me on my ass and without my guns. It wasn't for a fair fight, just like the other Grimm didn't hang back for a fair fight. They were having fun and I'd be quick to admit chaining Grimm up in a dungeon to flay and BBQ him without interruption sounded like grand fun to me too, so I understood their enjoyment.

"What?"

"I said wait."

"Do not command me," Grimm snapped at his counterpart. I knew that was coming, which was why I leaned back to the brick to catch my breath. The Brothers Grimm didn't get alone, big surprise, and this wasn't the first break in the fight where the argued like old hens. First time, I'd gotten a knife in Grimm number two's side; that also might have been why he pulled back. It was only fun if he could survive and I doubted he cared if the Grimm of this world survived with him.

"I'm not commanding, I'm cautioning. Play with him all you like, but do not kill him. I don't care if you hack of his legs, just cauterized them before he bleeds out."

Grimm stepped up to his buzz cut doppelganger. "That would be particularly similar to command, brother."

I glanced around the area as they argued. My Desert Eagle was in scarred Grimm's possession at the moment, which shamed me more than them getting the drop on me. My hold out weapon, a little snub nose p32, was several feet away from me where the Grimm of my world tossed it in distaste. My two throwing knives were sticking out of the mortar where one of their head had once been, but they were even father away. I hadn't been prepared for this on my little stroll down the block. Man, all I'd wanted was a caritas burrito from Carol's stand.

I wiped the blood from my brow before it blinded me and hoisted onto my feet. Neither idiot paid much attention to me until I reached the end of the wall. Then Grimm two was suddenly in front of me, pinning me by my throat.

"This would be easier if you'd just give in."

"Where's the fun in that?" I countered. Like before, the scarred Grimm was trying to get me to join the Breeders Club. He wanted me to help them pop out a new hybrid of Auphe to take over the throne Nik and I nuked clean. He was also making it apparent that they needed my permission about as much as they needed the consent of the succubae they'd been raping in their respective worlds. Chaining _me _up in a dungeon with a truckload of Viagra seems a possibly to them.

"Wait much longer and that cattle brother of his will show," Grimm snarled, unwittingly giving Niko some credit by voicing that concern.

Scarred Grimm smiled, those needles tingled against each other when his human lips brushed them. "Wouldn't that be a shame. However could we use that to our advantage?"

"Fuck you," Grimm one snapped at the condescending tone. "I doubt Caliban would be any more cooperative if we killed his brother. The bond is sickening."

"And if we promised not to?" the other Grimm asked me. "If we crossed our hearts and hoped to die?"

I kneed him in the balls, screw the man code right now. He threw me to the side with a wrathful war cry, but it was perfect trajectory. I'd been limping off to the right. Using his dominate hand, scarred Grimm threw me to my left as I knew he would, having me tumble on top of my p32.

I grabbed it as I rolled onto my back and fired two rounds at the closest Grimm. One sunk into his clavicle before he gated, but then he was behind me. He tried to put me in a sleeper hold, but got an elbow to his now broken nose. I twisted my arm back, ducked my head, and blind fired again with the hope that I could catch him under the chin and be done with this.

Buzz-cut grabbed my ankles and yanked me across the rough ground so my shirt rode up and the gravel ate up a couple layers of skin. The Desert Eagle in all its matte black beauty was pressed between my eyes. It was a stand off considering I had the revolver to his temple.

"You think I can't out gate your bullets?" he challenged. He was a top of me, one knee uncomfortably wedged between my legs, while the other bent my knee back to the ground with his weight so I couldn't bust his balls again. My heart thundered, wondering how many times Cassie had this view.

"I don't want you dead, little brother. I want you smarter. Smarter than that weak, bull-headed, sappy human you've become in my world." He tilted his head into the end of my gun. I could shoot, I could try, but this Grimm would kill me just as readily as the other one if I didn't play the game right. "You want to sleep with her. Don't lie. She's beautiful, isn't she? And the cries she makes when you spread her legs…pure rage, like a siren's song."

I fired. Grimm was gone, both of them, I didn't even get the satisfaction of a little blood patter to indicate I did any damage before he traveled.

I rolled onto my knees, limped over to grab the throwing knives from the brick. I wasn't deluded enough to think they were done. Not when I reacted violently to his goading.

"Cal!"

I cursed at my brother's call from down the street. Both Grimms knew he'd come, I knew too I'd just hoped he wouldn't.

Niko knew the sound of my guns, every one of them in my arsenal. So if he'd been idly looking for his little brother taking too long to get a taco that shot would have been a red flag. He skidded to a halt at the mouth of the playground, katana already pulled.

I reached for a gate, praying it would work and I could take us both home before the Grimm Brothers came back to use my brother as a bargaining chip. "Go!" I snapped, when nothing opened in the ether at my command. My Auphe gods had abandoned me.

"No, stay," a laugh sounded from above. Nik was gated to the other end of the basketball court sized playground. Scarred Grimm appeared in front of him, dodged Niko's katana by a hair. He tried to shove my brother against the brick where my blood stained, but nearly lost his arm for another swipe of graceful steel. He laughed again.

"I give you credit, human. You are much more entertaining than most of the meat puppets of your race, but if you don't play nice," he trailed off, spread his fingers palm up to show off a little gate hovering above his life and prosperity lines. "This will find a home inside you,"

My heart lurched. Grimm, our world Grimm, popped up in front of me to administer a backhand. I stumbled and chucked a throwing knife. This close it connected and pasty-assed bastard grunted, but resetting myself I could see him pluck it out of his side like a toothpick.

"That goes for you too, Caliban," the scarred Grimm claimed, like he held the fucking world in his hand. It was a close thing. "And do be careful. I've only ever seen you do this. I'd hate for your brother to suffer horrible pain as his intestines are ravaged before he bursts open like a piñata."

"I'm not going to be your breeding stud. I wouldn't do it for the Auphe and I'm not doing it for you."

"We'll make it easy then," he countered, scratching at the back of his buzzed head. With his other hand he pushed the gate around like a poker chip hovering over his knuckles. "You want to fuck her. I assumed as much before, but after that explosive reaction to my innocent teasing I know. You want her, but you have clouded it all up with emotions."

The Grimm from our world paced around me, tapping the throwing knife to his thumb as if trying to find the right spot to plant it into my flesh. He was still letting the other Grimm do the talking, letting him lead like I did Niko. Maybe that made him Wilhem Grimm –little Billy the baby brother listening to his big brother Jacob tell stories. Yup, Billy and Jacob Grimm, I hereby dub you asshole brothers of the year. You could take that throne from me anytime.

"She's not Cal's to have and she is certainly not yours," Niko interjected.

Big brother Jacob glanced over his shoulder to give me a purse-lipped, eyebrow raise of irritation. Niko didn't take the opening. I was so glad for it. We hadn't fought Auphe-types for a while, since our first encounter with Billy Grimm. We were out of practice and I was malfunctioning.

"But she could be Cal's easily. Her lover is crushed at home curled up with the little tykes forgetting her day by day. Sweep her off her feet, Caliban. Remind her of why the other one's back is riddled with scars from her claws tearing sensually every night."

"You're taking advice from this sick bastard?" I asked the Grimm circling me. Billy Grimm's red iris' locked on me and he stopped his carousel pacing. "I hate to admit it, but he's crazier than you are. And you hate me. Why would you let him manipulate you into working with me?"

"He's not manipulating me and I'm hoping you'll fight. Then I can cut off your feet and hands and watch every shred of dignity you think you have be slowly pealed away."

I narrowed my eyes. "Wait, do you want my flesh or my sperm. I'm confused."

"Stop wasting time," Jacob Grimm snapped. "Pinata brother or surrender? Your choice; make it now."

"Aren't you missing an integral part of your plan," Niko said, drawing Jacob Grimm's attention back to him. I flipped the second throwing knife in my hand, made sure our Grimm couldn't see it. Niko had a move and he was about to make it. I had to be ready for checkmate.

"Aside from the fact that with two men of egos, you will end up killing each other to take point, which, even I have to say, the other world Grimm has at the moment," Niko paused to let Billy Grimm stew on that for a second. "You don't have Castiella and without her this is really all pointless chatter."

"You don't think I can obtain her? You don't think I know exactly where she is? Holed up with the goat and parakeet like they can save her from me. She is mine."

"Yours?" I echoed. I'd been trying to needle a riff between the duo for a while, Nik had gamely joined in, but that comment was the coffin nail I needed. "Interesting singular pronoun."

The two Grimm's stared at each other for a moment, but even Billy Grim was too smart for tactics I used on Wolf's just out of their kennels. There would be words between them later, no doubt, but we need a distraction now.

Jacob Grimm lifted his hand and, with it, the gate, feigning like he was blowing a dandelion puff at my brother. Niko stood rigid, watching the monster instead of the tear inching toward him.

"We'll get Castiella. Don't you fret," Billy Grimm said behind both of us. "We'll keep her alive for years to come." He pulled my shoulder to turn me. I jerked away and bared my teeth even if they didn't compare to his shark grin. "So then, confetti celebration for you heroic defiance or a living brother for your submission?"

There was a strange rustling like a flag in the breeze, then a piano in the form of a petite woman with gray-veined white wings slammed down on Jacob Grimm. Niko dodged the gate ball that careened into the wall before it popped like a bubble. I chucked the throwing knife which Billy Grimm evaded so I shot it. I was ballsy maneuver. One fraction off and that blade or bullet could go pin-wheeling anywhere, including back at me. The bullet hit with just enough English to have it spin out and land at an angle in Billy's neck the moment he appeared in front of me.

We stared for a moment as I hadn't expected that to work so perfectly either. His eyes bulged, enraged, but he didn't tackle me to the ground like he'd been planning. He clasped his neck, kept the blade and his blood in and gated his ass out of there. A wound like that, dissecting the carotid, needed attention off the battlefield even for a half Auphe. He left me with a parting gift though. A boot to my chest.

From the flat of my back, I heard the pop of another rib biting the dust. I held my breath as I twisted the revolver around take a shot at Jacob Grimm. He ducked the shaky shot and went back to his stand off with my brother. He'd wrestled Cassie to the ground. Her wings were spread wide beneath her and, like ever other appendage of her lithe body, they were thrashing wildly to unseat him as he strangled her. Niko's katana was held with a short grip at Grimm's throat, but my Desert Eagle was pressed to Niko's chest point blank.

"Your back up just skedaddled, Jacob Grimm," I told him. "You might want to take the hint."

"Your brother's life is still in my hands and now I have that missing piece you pointed out. Why would I retreat?"

Cassie's hand smacked down hard on Jacob Grimm's gun toting arm. Hard enough it fell away without firing. It took me a second to register arms weren't supposed to bend like that without a joint and another two second to realize Cassie hadn't hit him with a blind slap. Her Auphe-talons, at least three inches worth, had scored _through_ his arm. It held on by a couple forearm muscles and the Ulna bone, but that didn't stop it from twisting loose like a botched suicide cut.

It took Grimm those three seconds too, because that's when he screamed. He bore down on Cassie as if to break her neck, but slipped out of existence in a gray shimmer when Niko moved to skewer him in the head with half the katana blade he had left.

When he disappeared, Niko wasted no time in lifting Cassie up by one arm. She used muscle and wing to follow the motion without much effort, but still had to lean into him when she stood. She coughed several times before she could speak. "Sorry about your katana."

Niko lifted the blade; it was cut in halfway down at an angle, several hunks and the tip were still on the ground where she's been laying. He slid it into its sheath all the same. "It's fine," he glanced over at me and his frown deepened.

"I'm fine." Yeah, that was real convincing with me lying on my back. My body throbbed painfully from my neck down…and my eyes up. Clocked in the head, kicked in the ribs, but I'd survive and I proved as much by rolling onto my knees and then my feet. I didn't get my vision back from sharp black and white strobe lights until I straightened.

I felt Cassie's hands slide over my arm and shoulder. "Let's take the short cut home."

"Can't," I murmured. "They come and go. I opened one right before our fight but…"

"No, you didn't," Cassie snickered. "You high-jacked mine. The Glepnir apparatus has been malfunctioning since I got here. It was working on Grimm before, but now that doesn't seem to be the case, so his collar must be turned off too." She stopped, waved a hand in front of her face. "Nevermind, let's get you home."

Without another word, she opened the gate and took us back to the apartment. It was a damned smooth ride too.

Feet on the more familiar ground of the studio side of the covered warehouse, I held up no pretenses and promptly eased down on one of Niko's sparing mats despite the smell of disinfectant. I didn't know how she knew where we lived; she'd only been with Robin this whole time. Maybe we had this apartment in her world too. "There isn't a part of me that doesn't hurt right now."

"I'll get the kit," Niko said. I heard his ghost steps whisper away. Cassie knelt beside me and brushed my hair back from my face.

"I saw what you did with that knife," she hummed. "That was pretty damn sexy."

"Lucky more like, but thanks." I caught her hand in a pass over my forehead. "Do you really use those things on my back?" I questioned, taking her hand and turning it to try and figure out where those claws even came from. Her fingers were small and thin, but I could see on the tips smudges of blood thicker at the slit where I imagined they emerged.

Cassie bent over and kissed my bruised knuckles like it was something she did every day. "Sometimes I can't contain myself, but you like it…I'm gentle with you."

I chuckled, not complaining when she shifted to my head and lifted my aching skull into her soft, warm lap. When he started stroking my hair I felt the sudden urge to just pass out.

"Cassie how did you end up there? I called Robin," Niko asked, his voice carrying from down the hall.

"You also never waited for his reply. He's with my uncle. They needed some alone time." That explained her sudden appearance at least.

Niko's voice changed tone as he got closer. His footsteps unheard, but the shuffle of a half full first aid kit and a leather medical bag were unmistakable. "Cal, don't sleep right now."

"Not asleep," I assured him.

He refocused on Cassie. "You shouldn't be alone, even in Goodfellow's apartment."

"Worse case I show Grimm I can gate again and he'll never catch me. Plus Robin may be my best friend, but he's fucking my uncle…there are sounds you don't want to hear relatives make. It was either they go to Uncle Ishiah's or I wander the streets while the sock is on the door. The former seemed best."

"Seems legit," I commented, then promptly doubled up when Niko prodded the fractured rib. "What the hell? Easy tiger, at least give me some drugs before you go all operation on me!"

Nik sighed and prepared a syringe at my request. If he wasn't fighting premature drug usage, I looked even worse than I felt. Cassie dug out a few antiseptic wipes and started on the wound on the back of my head, where it had met brick a few times. I cringed when she separated my hair to get to it, but tried not to move since Niko was administering the needle at the same time.

"What do you think?" Niko said aloud, as if polling the room. We knew what he meant. Both Grimms were wounded now, Jacob Grimm significantly. But both would likely be able to staunch the blood or threaten a healer for aid before they kicked it. There were other second-rate healers around New York, some even slightly legit, but none that Nik and I trusted. The Grimm Brothers weren't going to be as picky when they would kill the poor bastard afterward to keep their secrets anyway.

"You nearly took off his arm," I murmured. My eyes were closed again and my head was getting fuzzy. Niko must have put darvoset in that needle. "That was pretty intimidating."

"More so when you know that's how I took off his balls?" she teased. "Well, one ball. Sadly, he can still reproduce."

"I hope you clean them off before you rake them down my back."

I heard Niko sigh out an apology to Cassie. I peeled my eyes open and tilted my head up to look at her. It wedged her hand and the gauze between my wounded head and her thigh. "What if you can't get back?"

Her full lips parted a little. Her dark eyebrows pulled inward. "I can't think like that, Cal."

"But what if you can't?" I pressed. I felt like my mouth had been hijacked. I wanted to stop talking. Actually all I wanted to do was just pass out, but I kept yammering like a fool. Maybe this was how Goodfellow felt. "What if we kill Billy and Jacob Grimm –shut up, Niko, those stories were actually interesting and I do retain some things. What if we kill him and you can't get home? What if your Grimm doesn't even know how either? He didn't come here with a round-trip ticket in mind, obviously."

"Cal, rest," Niko said and even tried to press a hand to my shoulder to reel me in. I smacked it away sloppily. Then my hand was no longer in my control either and it reached up to tug at a loose red-blond tendril of Cassie's hair.

"You can stay. In New York," I cracked a smile that probably looked as loopy as I felt. "Niko could use some help keeping my ass out of the fire."

"As long as I'm here I will protect you, but I can't stay, Cal."

Every time she moved a new hint of her earthy floral scent reached me. I closed my eyes and turned my head so my nose hit her smooth wrist. I understood why I was drawn to her in the other world. She was like me, but dissimilar enough that she was better than me. An angelic monster. What had Grimm called her? Our queen.

"If you can't leave. If you can't, maybe…" Something hit my cheek. It rolled over the crest to my ear much too quickly to be blood. I cracked my eyes open, but Cassie was already curling over me. Her hair fell over her shoulders obstructing my view of everything but the pale scars on her jaw.

"Please, stop," she whispered. She was crying. "Please. You don't understand and I can't explain. I have to go home. Please don't wish for something else."

I nodded. Finally my mouth stopped moving without my brain's consent. I stared at those scars for another moment or two as she hugged me. Then closed my eyes and let sleep take me.

She didn't have to explain. I wasn't Cal. I wasn't her Cal. And if I was any good, if there was any speck of goodness in me. I had to get her back to him.


	14. Chapter 14 - Cal

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

ƆȺȽ

I woke up in my bed, not that such was uncommon. Nik had been carrying me to my bed long after I became too old for that, but now it wasn't because I fell asleep on the couch trying to watch static-lined late night talk shows on a TV that still had rabbit ears.

I felt like a truck hit me, shifted into reverse and did it again. Whatever Niko had given me wore off hours ago and sleep was no longer deep enough to stave off the ache. My chest was wrapped, but damp with sweat. My head was swollen and scabbed, but clean of brick dust and pieces of mortar. And my pride was shot to hell.

I remembered every sap-soaked, drug-idled word that escaped my mouth like sugary vomit yesterday. I practically got on one knee and asked Cassie to be mine forever and ever like a teenager than knocked up his high school sweetheart at prom.

I groaned and rolled over as slowly as possible. It didn't help for the pain so I sat up quickly, hoping the band-aid method would work better. A resounding no.

Holding in my screams and curses, I made it to the bathroom to relieve myself so Niko didn't have to change my sheets for my incontinent ass…this time. I had to lean a hand to the wall to keep the pain down to a level of ten, but at least there wasn't any blood in the stream. Even washing my hands was agonizing, so I wasn't even going to try for my face. I had the mirror covered with a towel, but I imagined my face looked like the grill of the metaphoric truck that hit me.

"Ah, crap," I grumbled when the door, which hadn't been locked, skirted open with a brief knock. I'd been hoping it was my brother. I would have even settled for Goodfellow or Promise, but neither of them smelled quiet like that fragrance that teased and taunted every nerve in my body. I leaned into the sink with both hands wrapped in a death grip around the ceramic edges. "Can you not be here right now?"

"I take it you remember everything then?"

"I'd rather not."

Cassie came into the bathroom, leaning against threshold. I closed my eyes, wishing if I counted to ten she'd be gone. "I'm not above screaming for help. I'll tell Niko you're trying to kill me."

"He went out for a run, so apparently he trusts me enough with you that he won't believe you even if you did."

No, he just wanted to get me cornered alone with her, so we could hash out my touchy feely breakdown. I kept my head bowed, my eyes closed.

"Cal still covers our mirror too sometimes," she murmured. "Very frustrating. It's impossible to get my hair right without it."

"I doubt he cares much about your hair when he's reliving nightmares."

She was silent for a moment. "Yes, which is why I always cover it back up. I know the potency of those nightmares…or similar ones at least."

"Listen, I know I said some crazy shit last night, but you don't have to worry. I'm not going to sabotage your way home or anything. Cal of your world is in love with you. I just think you're sexy and…relatable, I guess. I'm not trying to steal your from him."

"Noted," she said. Her warmth coasted up next to me. She pried one of my hands from the sink and hopped up to perch there facing me. "If you're not going to look, at least let me fix this up?"

She was talking about my split lip and the few abrasions I still had on my face. I knew this but I was slightly distracted by being between her knees. I watched her pull some ointment from the medicine cabinet twisted oddly with out even knocked the towel over the mirror out of place. Then I found myself staring at her features as she dabbed the ointment on my face. Her lips that were so pink and bowed they looked painted on. Her button nose with its round tip and slight upturn. Her doe eyes and thick dark lashes. She really was beautiful, as Grimm claimed.

"Do you still think of George?"

The question seemed to come out of nowhere, so I was left in shocked silence for a second or two. "I…no. Not until you mentioned her a few days ago. If you're thinking I should pursue her instead, that is a bad idea. She's human and…" I couldn't really say innocent considering all she had seen with her gift, but nothing else was coming to mind. "I'd get her killed. I don't want that so I will probably continue to not think about George until she's brought up again."

Cassie's eyes flickered to each of mine, mahogany looking more reddish cherry in this poor lighting. Her lips pressed together as she wiped the excess salve off on a tissue. "Okay, bad example."

"Bad example of what?"

Cassie took up the hem of my shirt and lifted to look at the bandages and bruises underneath. She made the face of sympathetic pain. "Arms up."

I narrowed my eyes and tried not to smile. "It hurts a bit to do that so no, but I assure you my ribs are all still there."

Castiella rolled her eyes, hooked her finger at my crew neck collar, and promptly sliced down the front with an inch long black talon. I could see it clearly piercing through her fingertip now, actually eliciting a bead of blood when it broke the skin. I followed the claw's progression with a bit of apprehension. I'd never been on anything but the business end of those things. She didn't cut me, pulled far enough away from my skin, and her sliding the shirt off like a jacket hurt far less than trying to get it up over my head. Unfortunately, it was also a bit erotic and I really didn't need to be thinking those things right now.

I took a deep breath through my nose. It blazed internal flames through my chest, but the pain distracted from the feverish feeling I was getting from her hands brushing over my sides and chest to remove the damp bandages. Maybe I did actually have a fever. I was sweating enough for one and had been before I woke up.

"What if the roles were reversed," Cassie said. Her voice cut into the silence, making me jolt. "What if you knew me in this world, what if you and the Castiella of this world loved each other and shared your lives and secrets? And then she was taken from you. Sent to another world…how would you feel if she…slept with your doppelganger?"

None of that was spoken like Niko's lectures. No 'if someone stole your puppy how would _you_ feel' nagging or chiding tone. She was asking. She wanted to know how I would react, because she wanted to know how _he _would react if she slept with me. As hypothetical metaphors went it wasn't very subtle.

Her hands pulled away from my sides and fell to her own thighs. Cassie bowed her head. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't even be considering it. It's betrayal no matter what, right?" She ran her hands over her face. She looked close to tears.

I was left frozen in front of her, her knees tapping my hipbones at every uncomfortable shift on the sink. "I know I keep saying you're not him, but…you are. You are him and now you're starting to look at me like he does and it's killing me."

Cassie shook her head in shame, then shifted forward to get off the sink. "I just miss him, I'm sorry."

I caught her by pressing my hand over her thigh, before she could get the leverage to hop down. Castiella lifted her head to meet my eyes. "I don't know the answer to the riddle," I told her. I stepped forward so the elastic of my boxers touched the cold ceramic of the sink, the heat of her thighs either side of that was a stark contrast. "I don't know what he would think. He'd probably be mad, but if he's anything like me, if he thinks like me, he would do the same thing I would in this situation. And he wouldn't give a shit about the other guy."

I kissed her, something I hadn't known how desperately I wanted to do until that moment. Her mouth was softer than I expected. The pressure she returned with matched mine so well it almost felt as natural as crooking a trigger finger and just as explosive. Her arms wrapped around my shoulders, fingers with normal nails scraping at my scalp. I wanted to know what those talons felt like. I dragged my own blunt nails up her thighs, under the skirt of yet another dress Goodfellow bought her. I'd thank him for the easy access later.

Cassie retreated from me just long enough to pull in a gasp when my thumbs brushed high on her inner thighs. Her legs spread wider, one looped around my side to pull me against her. Nerves furious with the light touch of her knee to fractured ribs, sent a signal to my brain violent enough to simultaneously kill my pride and my hormones.

I bit down on my lip to keep from screaming, tasted blood and antibiotic ointment. I curled over her shoulder to try not to dig too deeply into her thigh as I gingerly coaxed her leg away from my side. Her fingers massaged over shoulders and neck in apology.

"Sorry…well, that is probably for the better," she whispered.

"For you maybe," I groaned. Cassie snickered, lifted my head, and gave me a short chaste kiss.

"You would have been mad," she reiterated.

I frowned, but conceded. "Furious actually, but I would have forgiven you. How many women like you will put up with a guy like? I doubt he has any more choices than I do and you…" I leaned in, giving in to the pull of her scent again and brushing my lips to that pink bow. "I don't think it gets much better than you."

"You're really trying to work me out of my panties, are you?" Cassie giggled.

From the hall, I could hear the click of the front door. Niko made his steps audible as he came in, but I'd expected him to go to his room to clean up, like always. Instead, he knocked the bathroom door open and took in our position with a frown. His gray eyes went to my hand still up Castiella's dress immediately.

"That is not why I left you here alone." He bent down to pick up my shirt off the tile. "And what the hell happened to your shirt?"

Cassie started laughing and I felt a smile twitch on my mouth. Part of me still wanted her; a strong eighty percent of me still wanted her, but there was that other percentage whispering that it wasn't right, I shouldn't wish for her never to go home, and I shouldn't want to use her to satisfy my own depravity just like the Brothers Grimm and how many others. It was cruel and wrong, but it was a small percent.

"You stay away from me when I get better," I warned her, stepping back from the sink so she could slip down from the pedestal.

"Why? You already said you'd forgive me," she teased with a well-placed hand dancing fingertips across my abdomen where it wasn't bruised. It was just teasing, a playful taunt that she didn't entirely mean, but my body – particularly the southern region that didn't like to listen to reason – knocked up a couple degrees and I knew I need to check myself around her in these coming days, weeks.

Niko stayed in the threshold of the bathroom as Cassie squeezed by him to leave. He was giving me the mother of all disappointed scowls. "What?"

"You should know better. How would you feel if someone, your carbon copy, took advantage of your lover while you were desperately trying to get her back?"

There was the lecturing kindergarten tone I expected before. I sifted around the medicine cabinet for a fresh bandage without pulling down the towel. "How do you know he's trying? Maybe he gave up and I can step up for the rebound."

He flicked my ear sharply.

"Ow. She started it," I complained.

Niko shook his head and moved behind me to pull back the shower curtain. He was as sweaty as I was but that wasn't from nightmares, jacked-up hormones, and fever healing. He came by his flushed exterior much more honestly. He turned on the shower, masking our conversation so Cassie couldn't hear as easily.

"You started it, Cal. You started it when you basically pleaded for her to stay with you with the earnest face of the man she loves. She's confused and lost and missing her lover terribly. They were separate even before she got here, you know that." I didn't, but it had probably been mentioned when I wasn't paying attention. Niko poked a finger at my sternum where it wasn't purple or yellow. "Castiella hasn't seen Cal in five months and now you're using that desperation to satisfy yourself. Keep it in your pants or I'll duct tape it there."

I clenched my jaw, shoving him off me when he tried to guide me out of the room. We were brothers for life, but the showering together stopped around the time I could turn on the faucet myself. And you'd think with that much bonding under our belts he'd know me better.

"She hasn't seen Cal. Cal. I _am_ Cal," I snapped. "So I think I know how he feels, how he would react. He'd be pissed, but he wouldn't blame us because Cassie is confused and lost and missing her lover and I will _never_ have her _except_ for this moment. I think he'd forgive me knowing that. I _know_ he would. I can never have a girl like Cassie in this world, because she doesn't exist. So fuck you and screw Cal if he can't suck it up and deal."

I chucked the towel over the mirror at Niko and turned to the image of myself reflected. "You here that, Alice? If you don't find a way to get to her soon, you're just going to have to deal with me falling in love with her. Step to it, Cal!"

I stomped out of the bathroom a lot less impressively than intended. The vibrations of my footfalls set my chest blaze with renewed agony. Holding my side, I still slammed the bathroom door shut for Niko and went into my room doing the same to my door. I was thankful Cassie hadn't been waiting for me there. She was giving me space and I needed it. I eased back down on my bed and slung an arm over my eyes. What the fuck had I just said? What the fuck did that even mean?

"Damn it, Cal. Get your ass out here."

The rest of the day I spent in bed, avoiding Niko and especially avoiding Cassie. My tantrum, no matter how childish, struck a chord in Niko and he didn't even try to drag me out of bed. He brought me lunch, some pita bread bullshit, but I knew not to complain. Nik called Robin too. Removing temptation. We all knew I didn't need anyone leading me to it; I found it very easily on my own and transporting that temptation back to the puck's Soho apartment was a fantastic idea. She left with a kiss to my cheek, forcing a promise that if either or both of the Grimms showed their ugly mugs I would call her so she could help.

The next day I managed to get to the couch. An accomplishment for me, but Niko didn't seem to think so. He scowled at me every time he passed the living room. Going for a run, coming back from a run, from checking on Cassie, from getting us lunch, then dinner. Yet the whole time he didn't yank me up out of my well formed ass-imprint and drag me off to do something. He wanted to talk about it. About Cassie or Grimm or maybe the weather, but he kept his mouth shut except for to tell me was going to go to Promise's place.

Amazing.

Granted, with both Grimms so injured this was probably the only time Nik felt he could safely leave me before the bridge started collapsing on us. I had taken a swig of beer and waved him off with a grin. Blessed was the day I could laze in front of the TV like every other American slob. Drink a beer and catch up on the latest Mafia show or some of the old classics, which ever struck my fancy. It was one night of non-chaos, one night where it was just me.

I was stretched out on the duct-taped couch reveling in the nuance of it all, eventually falling asleep, when Niko pulled me out of that revere. He flipped on the apartment lights –apparently I'd slept long enough that the sun went down– blinding me and jolting me out of a particularly nice dream that I would have no hopes of remember, because the nice ones never stuck. Then he had the nerve to smack my socked foot. I grunted as pain stabbed at my side.

"Why?" I growled. Why was he home and why did he wake me. Niko ignored both questions, agitated himself.

"Can you move?"

"Maybe. Depends on what for."

"Ishiah called us. Wants us at the Ninth."

"Now?"

"Do you think if he gave me the chance to propose a new time I would be here right now? Smelling your unwashed socks and looking at your grouchy mug when I could be having sex with my girlfriend?"

That explained the agitation. I sighed and grumbled and groaned, but I got up. Second time fracturing ribs had desensitized me a bit to the pain, plus Niko was letting me have the better quality drugs. Too bad they didn't improve my mood, because no one was happy when I walked into the Ninth Circle.

"You really know how to ruin a guy's night you know," I complained the moment I entered the bar. It was always eerie walking in this time of day. The Ninth Circle opened around three o'clock to keep up the pretenses that it was a somewhat legitimate business by human standards, but our happy hour was eight to midnight since most of our patrons didn't crawl out of their holes until sundown. It was after sundown, but I'd also seen the 'closed due to circumstance' sign posted out front. Seemed pointless to even put a reason when it was that vague, but I supposed former angels had a tough time being blunt and rude.

So, being closed due to circumstance, the Ninth was quiet enough to hear a pin drop. No Wolves barking their orders in almost-All-Wolf-but-not-quite garble. No feathers flying when a fight broke out, no mutterings, murmurings, or clinking glasses. It was silent save for a random tweet or coo from the actual avian that lived in the trees that crept along and through the rafters.

Samyel was hunkered over some accounting sheets at the bar, sitting in a stool instead of behind the counter. He barely acknowledged us before pointing to the back room to tell me where to take my complaints.

"Ishiah!" I shouted.

I was a little concerned by the feathered party-poopers call, no, his demand for us to come bar-side asap. Last time it had been Castiella in his apartment; I wasn't looking forward to what was waiting for us in his office. T-Rex and Alien races that fell through whatever wormhole Grimm Deux and Cassie came through? Whatever it was, I didn't want any subscriptions. "Ishiah!" and I wanted my boss to know this without a doubt.

He came around the hallway with a stern expression –no different from his usual. There was no basket of candy or a box with a bow in his hands, so surprise party was out and that was about the only option that would have made this night salvageable. No, he didn't have a present and he didn't have his calm. His wings were visible behind him, shuddering at the base and sending a feather or two to the floor. He resembled a tweaker waiting for his dealer, paranoid and not entirely certain the cops wouldn't be there any second…on a T-Rex.

"Ishiah, what did you find?" Niko asked. He'd been ignoring my grouchy comments and griping the whole way here, though he was probably just as irate that his booty call was canceled.

"We have another visitor," Ish replied with that same twitchy edge to his tone.

"It better not be aliens. I'm not dealing with aliens right after angels, demons, and parallel dimensions."

Ishiah dignified my comment with an exasperated sigh. He jerked his head toward his office. "No, it is much more harrowing than that."

I groaned and followed after the peri and my brother into the office tucked behind the bar. It wasn't much to look at by then again my eyes ignored the out-of-date computer and old school filing cabinets for the body on the couch. It was a leather loveseat that had seen better days. Hardly long enough for my long legs to stretch out. So they were hanging off the edge and over the arm rest. My head was cocked at an odd angle against the other armrest so I was almost kissing my shoulder. Straight black hair, always in need of a trim fell over my face loosely. I slept soundly, but that didn't soften the violent metaphoric punch to my gut.

I was standing in the threshold of Ish's counting house, but I was passed out on his couch. It was an exceptionally unpleasant sensation and it triggered my usual reaction in the face of unpleasant sensations.

I leveled my gun on my look-a-like. Niko promptly shoved the barrel toward the floor. "Cal, calm down. You've seen two Grimms standing abreast of one another, this is no different."

My brother went over to the other me. Brushed his damp hair back to get a better look, study the contours that matched the brother he grew up with identically. "Ishiah how was he found?"

"By Allaythia and her brood," Ishiah replied. Ally was one of the few regulars of the Ninth that could look me in the eye. A nymph who thought me amusing and non-threatening. Her and her incense-reeking friends were good tippers and never spat at me behind the bar, so she was alright in my book. Apparently, she was also looking out of my ass.

"Allaythia claimed he had gated into the pond in Central Park, gated out, stumbled and wavered in disorientation, the proceeded to gate two feet forward succinctly until he passed out."

Damn, gating through worlds sounded like a wild ride I never wanted to take.

"She and the others dried him off and brought him to me. Either they believe you a tenant or my indentured slave."

I glared. "As low as I've been in my life, I've never slept in a bar and I sure as hell haven't been anyone's slave." Except for the Auphe, but we didn't talk about that.

"He seems to be uninjured," Niko commented, shifting clothes and limbs aside to assess any damage that might be there.

"Castiella didn't wake for several days after first arriving," Ishiah explained. He leaned against his desk with arms crossed over his broad chest. "Partially because of her injuries, I'm sure, but traveling across metaphysical lines to a different world…I imagine Caliban's brains is more scattered than usual."

Something finally clicked at those bitter words and I relaxed, slipping the Eagle back into its holster. "More harrowing than aliens? _This_ is more harrowing than aliens?"

"I can barely stand one of you and now I have to suffer through two."

"God must hate you," I countered with a wicked smirk. Ishiah's jaw clenched so the scar lining the side of his face rippled. Maybe he left Heaven to be a peri among the humans, maybe he was born here, who knew, but he still believed in God and obviously didn't like that I would imply the all-powerful shithead would smite him. Why not? The bastard smited me daily. His celestial alarm clock went off in the morning and that was the first thing on his to do list: piss off Caliban Leandros. Right after that was probably sit idly by with popcorn as the world falls apart.

"So what do we do?" I shoved my hands in my jacket pockets and edged a little closer to the other world me. I didn't want to chance touching him for fear that would throw off the space-time continuum, or yank or worlds together like the separation bubble snapped, or just plain kill us. I doubted the last one –Grimm might not be touchy-feely, but he had to have bumped into or, more likely, sucker-punched his own doppelganger by now and they were both still around.

Niko brushed his fingers over the other me's brow, concern lining every one of his features. "He came here for Castiella, I assume, but did he do so impetuously or with a plan?" He glanced up at me as if I could answer.

"I don't know, Nik." Granted, I was known for flying off the handle, so other Cal would be known for the same. And if Cassie was under his skin enough for him to confess he loved her aloud it was entirely possible he hopped to another plane of existence without a second thought. Hell, I was just as few months and several sexual encounters shy of that already. Maybe this Caliban sensed that and hauled ass.

"This isn't like with Cassie," Niko went on. "She doesn't have an identity here. If she can't get back to her world there is space for her here. Grimm can be killed to make his duality balanced, but if you are stuck here," he motioned to my unconscious half, then rested a hand to the other Cal's shoulder. "I don't know how that would work."

"Speculation gives you ulcers, big brother," I warned. "Wait until he opens his eyes before we lock him up. Maybe he's smarter than me and has a plan. Maybe you're there waiting on the other side holding the elevator door."

"How? Grimm is here, Castiella is here, and you are here. Who is left that has the ability to open a gate to allow them to return?"

It was a sobering though and one feasibly true. In our world there were me and Grimm as the only traveling bad assess, unless you counted the bae. In their world, Cassie was added to the list, but she was watching old movies, braiding hair, and painting toe nails with _our_ Goodfellow. Who was left but the bae…and the Auphe.

"Cassie told us the Auphe survived in her world." I might not have remembered her mentioning being away from the other Cal for five months, but I did remember her saying that in our downtime. One didn't forget that. "And Grimm still created the succubae half-breeds, maybe we stuck a deal…" I almost laughed at the ridiculousness of my own thoughts and amended, "Maybe you're holding a bae hostage, forcing it to open a gate. If you're with the Vigil tech Cassie talked about maybe its on remote. We don't know until we ask and right now our answer is zonked on the gate-high of all gate-highs." I kicked the couch leg for emphasis. My other self groaned and shifted. Waking.

All be damned, I hadn't expected that to work. If I wished for a pony, a million dollars, and a Colt Anaconda would that come true too?


	15. Chapter 15 - Cal

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

ƆȺȽ

Other me peeled his eyes open, one then the other; neither made it passed half-mast. "Nik?"

"Cal." Niko's response was almost a question itself. Not sure what else he thought my brother from another world would call me. Calib? Ban? I thought not.

"D'work?" The question was slurred badly, but we both assumed he was asking if his gate worked, or maybe if it didn't work.

"You're safe, Cal. Take it easy."

He didn't take it easy. He caught sight of me and shot up in the chair, one foot slamming to the wood floor with a clomp. Wide-eyed he didn't feel for an instinctual weapon, but instead held his hands out in front of him, looking at me, then Niko, briefly at Ishiah, then back to me. "If I told you I was a figment of your imagination would you go about your lives per usual?"

Nik offered a small smile and patted other me's knee. "It's alright. You're not in the past, little brother."

Caliban Mach 2 looked skeptical, then he blanched to an unhealthy shade of green. "What does that mean then? Was the fireboat real and I'm in another world or did I loop back? Did Grimm already screw things up and I'm stuck in limbo or a new present?" All that came out in one breath and in the next he simple asked, "Where's Cassie?"

That was obviously the answer he wanted first so Nik gave it to him, hand still on Caliban's knee. It was a testament to their relationship in his world that he didn't remove it. I wouldn't, but this wasn't me –not entirely. "Cassie is safe. She's with Robin."

Dark eyebrows furrowed and Caliban shoved his lank hair –my lank hair– out of his face. "Is Grimm here?" Niko nodded. "Does he know she's with you?"

"Yes, but we've—"

"Is he dead?"

"No."

Caliban shook his head. "Then she isn't safe. Take me to her; we can talk on the way."

"Cal, there is no need to rush this. Robin is capable—"

"I haven't seen her for five months. Take me to her or I gate to every address Goodfellow has ever lived."

Niko sighed, obviously getting annoyed with my petulance, not that he wasn't used to it. He stood from his crouched position by the couch and gave Ishiah a nod. "We'll take it from here, I suppose."

I was beginning to feel like we should have grabbed that other stack of hundreds for all this bullshit we were about to wade through.

We walked back. It was a long walk and Caliban wasn't happy about it, but with the pain meds wearing off neither was I. We decided to call him that; Me Cal and him Caliban. I doubted Niko would adhere considering he'd been treating Caliban _exactly_ like me since before he even woke up, but it'd be easier on the rest of us and Caliban said he didn't give a shit.

He gave a shit about the walk though and got into a familiar argument with Niko about there being a time and a place for exercise. Since I was wearing a hoodie under my jacket to hide the bulge of the Desert Eagle from the walking commuters come out of the woodworks, I was told to keep back from them so no one saw half-Auphe identical twins walking around. I pulled it up and walked behind them like a mugger waiting for his chance. There was no chance with these two, even bickering they could take down a professional thief before his fingers stretched toward their pockets.

I changed my pace a little too, the way I walked. Because Caliban walked exactly like me, talked and moved exactly like me. It was unnerving to say the least. But with my side aching after the Brothers Grimm reminded me my ribs had been broken something nasty a few weeks ago it was nice to favor that side without Niko yelling at me for showing my weakness.

"So everything's the same?" Caliban asked finally moving on from his griping to grasp the situation at hand. "Like alternative histories."

"Not everything," Niko hedged. "Castiella tells us there are some differences, but she won't expand much. She claims she doesn't want to influence our decisions in this world by learning about hers."

Caliban snorted and worked a rubber band he stole from Ish's office into his hair. The back of his head had either been cut close or shaved not too long ago, so it stuck out an inch from his nape more haphazardly than even mine on a bad day. "That's what I get for letting her become friends with George."

I lifted my eyebrows at that, but kept my mouth shut lest I wanted the group of young vampires walking by down the street to think Cal Leandros was starting up a ventriloquist act.

George was still around in his world? Not living around, that was the same in my world –hopefully, but NYC around? Last I'd heard she moved far, far away from and I was fine with that decision. Cassie mentioned her in the list of connections between our worlds, but didn't mention she knew her as more than one of my defining memories.

"It doesn't really matter much, does it? I'm not taking away your free will by telling you to watch out for the Vigil because they go power-hungry, take-over-the-world one paien at a time in my world. Or that Grimm is a sick bastard bent on creating a new race of half Auphes to take the throne out from under the new, young Auphe."

"Well, that second part is true enough in our world," Niko murmured. "Except there's no one currently on the throne."

"Or that Grimm is missing one testicle and has a scarred dick because he underestimated Cassie?"

Niko shuddered for that mental image, but I just grinned. Cassie had already divulged that adventure with great relish. Some things were well worth telling despite her reserve and getting the best of Grimm was one of them.

Caliban shoved his hands into the pockets of his jeans and laughed to himself. "What is she worried about? Telling you what happened to us is like you reading your own biography, right?"

"It might have something to do with the fact that Castiella does not exist in our world. She was killed almost a millennia ago."

Caliban stopped in the middle of the sidewalk at that. I thought he might –quite a shock hearing your girlfriend is dead. I shifted to brush passed them and kept up my stalker appearance by stopping by an old newspaper bin outside a 24-Hour convenience store as they talked.

"She's what?"

"Castiella's dead in this world." Nik didn't bother to sugar-coat it.

"Goodfellow thought she was dead in my world too, but she wasn't—"

"Cal," Niko interjected, soften his tone just slightly. "Her heart was ripped out by the Auphe. Our Robin saw it happen. Unfortunately, there is no question that she is dead in this world."

There was a couple beats of silence. I risked a glance back to see the look on Caliban's face. I could see why Goodfellow claimed he could see the gears turning in my head when I thought too hard on something. Caliban's expression looked like the clockwork was a bit rusty.

Caliban panned his eyes over to me, clenched his jaw, then readdressed my brother –our brother in some ways. "Did she tell you why Grimm wants her?"

"Grimm tried to give a live presentation, she didn't have to," I grumbled, forgetting incognito.

"Tried," Caliban echoed. His gray eyes were on me again; it was unnerving. Like looking in a mirror before Darkling showed up. His lids hooded in thought. "Thank you."

"She explained to us what the Vigil of your world has done," Niko offered. His voice helped distract me from the images replaying in my head. Caliban didn't have to thank me. She was barely more than a stranger, I'd stabbed her for her secrecy minutes before, but I wasn't about to let that happen in front of me. Now I was invested. They weren't touching her again.

"How much did she explain?" Caliban asked and started walking again. I fell in line behind them.

Niko took several minutes to go over what Castiella did tell us, about the module in her neck and what it used to do. Caliban apparently already knew it had been turned off. Niko told him that she explained how she was fertile and Grimm knew it. That he wanted to start the new Auphe race from her. By the time he was done Caliban seemed to recognize where we were going; Loman must have lived here in his world too at some point. He stopped at the steps that let into the building though, a hand to one of the waist high concrete pillars and his uncanny eyes fixed on me.

"Tell me one thing good about your world."

I rolled my eyes. A question like that might throw someone else for a loop, but I knew the way this guy's mind worked –naturally. "Why do you think I'm going to be envious of you? Because that's what it comes down to right? Cassie didn't want to tell me because she thought I'd be upset that I couldn't have what you have. I don't have a lot of things other people have, but I've never been envious."

I stepped up to myself even if he didn't turn, one foot to the bottom step. "Something tells me you have it just as shitty as me, especially since a whole lot of our enemies are and were the same. I don't care if you and Cassie were planning a double wedding with Promise and Nik. I don't care if you have a place in the suburbs with a white picket fence, two kids, and a dog. Shit is still going down in your backyard, same as mine."

"You're right," Caliban replied. He tried to keep on a serious face, but there were cracks in it and I could see a smirk hidden there that flared my temper.

"Here the Vigil is nothing more than a covenant of lost sheppards looking for a means to ward off the wolf without the sheep see its droppings. Here the Auphe are _dead_. I'd say those things are a lot better than anything you might have."

Caliban's eyes followed me as I stood beside him on the bottom step of the stoop. If anyone asked we were twins. "I'll admit I'm a little jealous you get Cassie and fully intended to convince her to stay with me if you were a no show, because she's…well—"

"Perfect for you," Caliban finished for me with a mischievous smile. "Have you slept with her?"

I balked a little. For the first time since the thought popped into my head I was happy I could reply, "No."

Caliban tilted his head to the side, one chuckle escaped his lips. "That's a shame. I would've."

I flashed Niko a vindicated and irritated glare that made Caliban laugh again.

"We've spent more time involuntarily separated than together if that eases the pain."

"No, it doesn't, but you see my point. You fight the Vigil, the Auphe, Grimm. You've seen your lover assaulted and raped by your enemy and apparently some idiot decided time travel with a half Auphe was a good idea. My world is better."

"Better than a house, two kids, and a dog?" Caliban teased.

"You have all those things?" I countered skeptically.

My other self just smiled like I walked into a trap set for a rabbit, cardboard box and string included. "No, I don't." He proceeded up the stoop then, deeming the conversation over.

"Cal," Niko started, then sighed when both of us looked at him. He patted me once on the shoulder like a half knighting. "Little brother," he assigned, then grabbed the front door of Robin's building before Caliban could enter. "Cal, is there anything you're keeping from us that could help kill Grimm?"

He thought for a second or two, then brushed Niko's hand from the latch. "No."

"Nothing?" Niko pressed his shoulder to the wood. The door looked original to the building and Caliban looked irritated enough that he'd probably still kick it in without a care. I could see the glint of a man getting fed up in his eyes. I may not have ever seen that expression on my face, but I knew how it felt and Niko knew it all too well. Caliban was ready to let some blood.

I wrapped my fingers around the Ka-bar in my jacket. He wasn't this Niko's brother, a close thing, but that difference would either allow him to attack without remorse or keep him in check like it did me. Ally, the nymph, had told Ishiah she'd watched Caliban gate, one after another. With my gates so faulty they went off unexpectedly if at all, like when I was first learning the means of travel, I was at a disadvantage. I reached for one anyway, but the rip wouldn't form.

"Electricity screws with our gates," Caliban offered. His feathers smoothed a lot more quickly that I expected. "Grimm's rhinestone, steampunk collar prevents, him from gating within five feet of Cassie _when_ her module is on. The Vigil turned it off, if it could even reach a signal here. Bad and good there. Grimm can gate anywhere, but so can Cassie now."

A glare fixed on me after he finished his speech, dropping to my hand under the jacket for a pointed second. "And you think I would attack Niko for being his usual nosy self? He raised me too, you know? I want to see Cas, but I'd never hurt my brother no matter the form." He pointed at me then, gray eyes narrowing in scrutiny. "Lastly, you just tried to gate, but it misfired. Why?"

I pressed my lips together in a tight seam. "Electricity affects gates. Electro Shock from a storm spirit angel makes them…unreliable."

"What now?"

I released my knife and pushed passed the two of them to enter the building. I didn't feel like rehashing that shit-storm from a month ago. I doubted Nik did either, but at least he could do it without speaking through his teeth. I could hear my brother recount in Cliffnotes behind me and Caliban reacted with dread. He knew Junior, so that happened to him too, but he didn't know Jack so he hadn't had the joy of the reprise.

There you go, Caliban. You tell us to watch the Vigil before they went Skynet, we tell you to watch out for psychotic serial killer angels that can raise the dead.

I knocked on Goodfellow's door as they finished up behind me. I doubted it would be a good idea for us to waltz in like the devil's double mint twins without explanation.

"Angels and demons, huh?" Caliban asked in a deadened tone, running a hand over his face. "I guess I'm having a little talk with Ishiah when we get back."

"It might not be the same in your world," Niko offered. "Cassie seems to think it isn't."

"Better not be the same, because that puts my world in the lead."

I knocked a little louder. It was an odd hour and a hellish week, but with Caliban's insistence and the same short fuse as me I didn't think leaving a note for Goodfellow and Cassie to call us for tea and scones when they woke was going to fly.

Goodfellow swung the door open with a vivid scowl when I started back on the door with the side of my fist. His Hugh Hefner robe was gaping open, but he had on a pair of silk pants and a tank top made of some sort of material that shimmered. His curly hair was ruffled, but only looked like purposeful bedhead. He already had his fingers pinched the bridge of his nose as if the headache I was bound to cause was already in full swing.

"Cal, why? Why must you cause so much noise, dressed like a common hoodlum, here at a time I only want to be woken in one particular way? Is it your nature or do you thrive on torturing me with childish foot stomping and an inanely vulgar mouth?"

"Cassie has a visitor."

Goodfellow's head shot up, wide eyed. "Grimm?"

"Me."

The puck glared. "As much as I'm pleased that you've given in to that temptation, now is not the time for…" He trailed off as he finally noticed it wasn't the usual pair on his doorstep. Maybe the inobservance was due to the fact that it was still the usual pair if he were drunk and seeing double. With a slow tilt of his head, his green eyes panned from me to Caliban and back again. I was surprised other me was patient enough to allow Goodfellow that time to process.

"Zeus, Odin, God, and all the others help us. Of all the creatures in all the world _you_ are cloned?"

"That coming from a race that breeds like a flat worm," Caliban snorted. He shouldered me out of the way. I half expected a shock or tremor or the world to explode, but I didn't feel a thing other than the nudge of his shoulder and the brush of his shirt sleeve to my jacket.

"Where's Cassie?"

"There are two of you, pardon, but I'm having trouble dragging myself out of the sudden depression cast upon me at this startling news."

"I'm not staying," Caliban assured him. "And I only have five days to get Cassie, kill Grimm, and get us home. So tell me where she is before I start raiding your apartment like a crack head who can't remember where he put his stash."

"Is that an accurate representation of how you're feeling?" Goodfellow grinned. "Like a junkie and Castiella is your fix?"

Caliban stepped up to Robin, nearly toe on top of toe. "You have no idea."

"On the contrary. I'm very knowledgeable of that craving."

"You have half an idea. You have third base an idea."

Goodfellow's grin widened. "I have several years of homeruns an idea," he teased. Caliban pulled back, stiff-backed at finding out he had boldly been where a puck had been before. Goodfellow looked to Nik and me. "I assume this is Caliban of the other world come to collect his damsel and slay the red-eyed dragon?"

None of us expected it, not sure how we remained so blissfully unaware. This was Caliban Leandros, as close to me as possible, and we all knew when I got stressed or anxious I got violent for cathartic expression. Caliban grabbed Robin up by the flaps of the robe, yanking the fabric so it jolted the puck forward, almost knocking their foreheads. Even Goodfellow was surprised, though his hand was already wrapped around the other me's wrist to break it, if need be.

"I'm not going to punch you for that, because I know how much you love her, but so help me if you try it with _my_ Cassie, you'll find a fork in a place that will make even Ishiah morn."

Wow, and he gave me the green light to defile his lover just twenty minutes ago; I felt special.

"Hey, handsome. I'm not yours in this world, don't try to stake claim."

I heard her voice from around the threshold, getting stronger each time I saw her. Now instead of the whisper of disuse it held a playful cadence. She though she was breaking up a fight between Loman and me; I'd think that a little egotistical, but if Robin had slept with her before and if she truly got stuck here with me there was potential for contention and infighting over her. Like Caliban said, she was perfect for me. And I figured he had a good idea what that meant.

Caliban pulled back from Goodfellow and abruptly spun at the sound of her surly tone. A voice he claimed to have not heard for months. He crossed the apartment with a gate, no thought to it, and collected Cassie up in a violent hug.

"Whoa, there," Cassie laughed, nearly out of breath from his squeezing. "What has gotten into you, Cal?"

I stepped through the threshold so she could see me, pulling down the hood to bring the realization home. I found it kind of sweet that she would have let me grab her like that, trusting I wouldn't hurt her. She thought it was me and she'd wrapped her arms around my shoulder as I squeezed the air out of her lungs. She smiled about it. Yeah…I was a little jealous he got her.

And that jealousy became uncomfortable the moment her demeanor changed. The moment she realized I stood in the doorway and it was her Cal in her arms. Her expression, those doll-like features went slack. Every line on her pale round face smoothed out and her eyes widened. The rims of her eyelids reddened with tears not quiet forming. She pulled back, one arm still looped around Caliban's shoulders –he had her lifted from the floor – while her other hand clasped at his jaw and neck to force his face up.

"Cal?" she whispered. "Cali?"

"I'm getting a little tired of rescuing you, Cas."

Her eyebrows wrenched in, her full mouth twisted into one of the most painfully emotional smiles I'd ever seen. Cassie folded against him, curling over to bury her face to his shoulder. Her arms rewound around him in an embrace I never though I'd see myself in, at least not in this lifetime.

Cassie was whimpering his name, or a nickname really. Cali; it made my skin crawl with the cutesiness of it and I vowed to gut anyone that tried it on me after this whole ordeal. I folded my arms over my chest and tried no to look at them as hey shared a kiss a half a year overdue. They weren't shy about it either.

I realized why Cassie hadn't wanted to tell me about this at first. Even the hints she dropped and the assurances she gave didn't compare to seeing the bond firsthand. I could understand why she'd refrained from gloating about how in one world Caliban Leandros had found a bright, fun, capable, beautiful monster to share his secrets and his bed with while in another there wasn't a snowball's chance in hell I would find that. Not that same beautiful monster anyway. And not that I wasn't doing alright without her.

And not that their make-out session wasn't making me extremely uncomfortable. I cleared my throat and heeled Robin's front door closed with a large bang. The sound drew them apart and out of their revere. Cassie's peri wings flashed into existence just long enough to jerk in alarm, then they disappeared. She was set back on her bare feet and her features softened to sheepish apology when she met my eyes. Caliban just gave me the look every cockblocked guy gave the interferer.

"As heart-warming Halmark, vomit-inducing, and slightly degrading for me as this moment is we still have our evil twins running amuck and you mentioned three days Jerry O'Connell." It came out in a rushed breath; I wasn't hiding the emotions I was stubbornly trying to squash down in a box labeled simply 'Nope' in the back of my head very well.

Castiella seemed even guiltier at my comment, but at least Caliban ignored the strain. He lifted his wrist to flash a watch I hadn't noticed before and commented on my pop trivia remark rather than my discomfort. "At least I didn't slide into the dinosaur world. Yeah, seventy-two hours." He checked the watch. "Well, sixty-seven hours. Gate opens and we're on the last train home."

"How?" Niko asked. He had paced into the apartment around the time Caliban went at Goodfellow. Now my brother edged closer to the happy couple, while Robin leaned back to the arm of a black couch in his living room.

"The fact that an apparatus which can amplify a gate enough to open to a different world exists in the hands of humans is astonishing and disturbing enough, but if all three half-Auphe of your world are here and it still opens…did you give them the control? That seems ill-advised even for a rescue mission." He shook his head. "Or is that just the time the wormhole connects? Is there a wormhole, at all? It's named after the Roman Ring theory."

"I don't know, Nik," Caliban replied, true to form of not caring about the technical side. "I would suggest you not think about it. Even if you came up with the correct conclusion, you're not going to like it."

"Is everyone safe?" Cassie asked, distracting Caliban by tugging on his shirt sleeve.

Her boyfriend nodded. "Everyone . All home, all safe. Manhattan Chapter has been shut down. Getting us back to our rightful home is their last hurrah. Josh came through, all accounts came through."

Cassie smirked. "You hate that you have to nicer to him for it, don't you?" She touched a hand to his chest to bat him, then looked down at the connection. Her brow furrowed again and she collapsed against him. He wrapped his arms around her as her voice trembled. "You promise everyone's okay? Dante…he—"

Caliban pressed his fingers to her mouth. I couldn't see his eyes as he faced his back to me, but he likely made a motion to us. Telling her to keep quiet about those names I didn't know from her parallel world list. They'd just mentioned two of the three. Josh and Dante.

"And Connor," I needled, listing off the final name. "How is he doing?"

"Snug as a bug," Caliban responded. He kept his arm around Cassie waist as he turned to me. His chin lifted like a challenge. A wolf taking on another of equal rank. "And what did we just discuss before we got here?"

"What can I say? I don't like secrets," I countered, biting down on a humoring grin. I made my way over to them, standing in front of my other self with a sneer on my face. I got why everyone had difficulty talking to me, tolerating me. The darkness in my eyes, his eyes, was pretty infernal. Even reunited with the sworn love of his life, Caliban looked like a man on the brink of mass homicide. "Not a big fan of inside jokes either."

"I'll tell you. If you're going to be a baby about it, but really its no more helpful than me reciting the Greek Parthenon."

"Can you recite the Greek Parthenon?" Goodfellow asked with heavy doubt and a laugh.

Caliban rolled his eyes and pulled his arm away from Cassie. "Would me retelling an episode of Lost that you missed in this world help you at all?"

I considered for a moment. "Maybe. That show went a little wonky a few seasons in."

"Do you want to know what you can't have?" Cassie interjected before Caliban and I inched any closer to each other. She hadn't moved to separate us, but she didn't need to. One look at her remorseful eyes and Caliban was back at her side. "What good will that do?"

I took in a deep breath and let it out through my nose. Glancing back at Niko I could tell he really didn't want to know, probably fearing the same as Cassie and Caliban. It would hurt me to know, as Cassie said, what I could never have. I wanted to push. I was the kid that read the last page of a comic book before I got to the middle. Then I saw Robin's expression.

If my brain gears were rusty cogs blowing steam, Loman's were one of those plastic race tracks where the cars would veer off the loop-d-loop and crash to the kitchen floor more often than stay on track. It looked like the puck's matchbox racers were getting a good run in this time. He was figuring it out.

I shifted a step back from Caliban as implication I was giving up the ghost. I gave him a fake sneer. "Then stop talking about it. It's rude."

He turned halfway around to dust a finger over the shell of Cassie's ear, tucking some hair back as well. "Everyone is fine and you will see them soon." He pivoted back to me. "Deal."

"I suppose I should make some coffee," Robin groused as he pushed off the arm rest. "Seventy-two hours to assassinate someone is plenty, but as you have been failing spectacularly so far I believe we need every hour we can steal."


	16. Chapter 16 - Caliban

**CHAPTER SIXTEEN**

**CALIBAN**

The thing about having the metaphoric equivalent of a bomb countdown strapped to your arm was that it didn't give very much opportunity to relax. If I forgot about it, someone else was quick to glance down and the tension would rise again.

That didn't stop me from telling them all to shut up and get out around three in the morning though. We had over sixty hours and I wasn't about to sacrifice sleep for rehashing events already past or hours of coming up with Grimm-killing plans that would never work. We were all running on empty, confused and disoriented, and nothing sufficient was being put on the table. Being told your world wasn't alone in the universe could do that.

I was in another world –Dante had been one hundred percent right about the fireboat. I saw it when I gated from Ward Island to Central park…into the pond. Didn't know how I ended up at Ishiah's bar, but my entrance through the looking glass had been a luxury cruise compared to Cassie's introduction. She had to fight off Grimm –already half conscious from drugs previously administered, she managed to escape. Flying as fast as she could, she sacrificed a safe landing for distance away from him, but I doubted she expected that landing would be through several floors of a construction site.

She was safe now. I was safe now and that was a wonderful thing albeit likely a temporary thing, but I was in another world and that deserved a few hours of shut eye to soak in. So I kicked Nik and Cal out, citing a lecture my brother once told me about how I would never be able to fight a real enemy sufficiently if I stayed up all night playing video games. It was an old argument, but it still applied. Lack of sleep wasn't good for an acute awareness and with two Grimms about, our deadline could suffer five to eight hours of radio silence in favor of breathing another day.

Niko agreed, but promised they would be back in the morning to continue planning the grand finale. Cal didn't seem too pleased by this, but I was fairly certain that was more because 'morning' to Nik started several hours before it did for us.

I told Robin to get the hell out too, but he was not willing to leave Cassie with only me as protection. It had been years since I'd seen that kind of possessiveness in the puck, but then I remembered – for him – he had just gotten his best friend back and he knew he couldn't keep her. So I let it go; it was his apartment anyway.

Goodfellow kept to his room once we all turned down, at least. Letting Cassie and I pass out in the guest room undisturbed. And pass out we did. Despite five months apart, despite the warmth of her body beside me and the smoothness of her skin finally under hand again, we only kissed. Only lasted that long before we drifted off into slumberland, her body curled against me like there was a winter chill in the room.

The morning, however, was a different story.

I was woken up from some rather pleasantly naughty dreams, disoriented and startled when I found the pleasantly naught things being done to me in said dream were very much happening in reality. Once the rational, aware, part of my brain woke up enough to overcome the haze of hormonal bliss and register this kind of attack was not one to fight, I dropped my head back to the pillow.

"Oh, Cas, god damn, I missed you," I sighed, hand drifting through her dark blond hair appreciatively. She hummed in amusement, making me buck slightly and stifle a groan by biting my lip. It didn't take long for her to take me to the ultimate happy place. I'd already been halfway there in the dream, as it was. Leaving only a few seconds for my heartbeat to slow, it also didn't take me long yank her up the bed and pin her to the sheets.

She was naked beneath me. Every inch of her body bare to me. I raked my eyes over the beauty of it and knew very well the statement she was making. Everyday she'd been away from me was an opportunity for Grimm to take what was mine and with her body as proof and her submission to me as assurance Castiella was telling me what I should have known all along. Grimm could never take her from me. Two souls alike, we were –if we had souls– and each soul was imprinted with the form of the other.

I kissed her, thoroughly enough to taste my own salty bitterness on her tongue. Another marker that made her mine. I wished it could have been through a more carnal connection, but with the hormone regime still coursing through her we couldn't chance a third oops. Instead, I brushed my hands over her form longingly, trailed kisses down her throat and breasts, and stroked her to her own mewled gratification with fingers much more deft due to her teachings.

She pleaded for more, always insatiable, and I tried to oblige. I wanted so much to be inside her, the friction and power that rallied when we were connected was unparalleled. I wanted her moans in my ear as she wrapped her legs around me. I wanted her Auphe claws scraping lightly down my back as she lost control. What I got, was a knife thrown at my head and my mirror image scowling from the open doorway when I caught it.

"No," Cal growled, obviously woken up way before he desired and more than happy to spread the hate. "If I can't, you can't. Wait til you get home, you asshole."

I _was_ an asshole, but then Cal already knew that. I didn't take much self reflection to figure that out. It was his own fault for coming in without knocking, but it was still the very thing I hadn't wanted to do to the other me. Rub it in his face that he could never have her.

At the moment, though, I wasn't sure I cared. Intoxicated by her scent, the feel of her heat still against me, I was more than tempted to tell Cal to get the fuck out. Cassie made the decision easier for me. She shifted out of my arms. My fingers still grazed her soft skin and every rippled scar I knew by heart, as she gave up on her second ride to Elysium. I dropped down on the empty space on the mattress and groaned in irritation.

"Really, Cal? Really, you're going to be this petty?"

"Petty," Cal snapped in retort. "This is _my_ world, slick."

I was butt-ass naked on my stomach, but Cassie was in full view. Needless to say, Cal's eyes didn't fix on an ass he saw everyday, but the much more attractive figure walking into the guest bathroom. To his credit, he maintained an aloof expression, even as he gave Cassie several lingering once overs. The door clipped shut and he turned back to me.

"You had plenty of time to have you're fun last night."

"I had just world-jumped. How much energy do you think I had last night?"

"Not my problem. If I can't, you can't."

"What time is it?" I sighed.

"Eight," Cal replied, having a little more trouble being subtle when Cassie came back into the room to get her clothes. She was fully aware of the other Cal's heated gaze on her and was being a horrible tease with the way she was moving while she dressed.

"Niko let us sleep in. How nice of him," I commented and rolled over with an arm pillowing my head. Cal wrinkled his nose when I exposed myself, but that was _definitely _something he saw every day. "Toss me my jeans if you can't stand the sight of your own dick, yah pansy," I snapped at him when he lifted a hand to block my junk from his sight.

Cal glared, but did as I asked. He chucked them with a little more punch than necessary, and I saw the disappointment on his face when he looked back to find Cas shrugging on a dress nearly identical to the one I saw her in when we went on our first date.

Adjusted the fabric over her breasts, with both of us staring, she sighed. "Darlings, please stop. This situation is far too tempting and I don't think either of you will be adventurous enough to succumb to what I have planned. But if you both keep staring at me like that..."

"What do you have planned?" Cal asked, taking the obvious bait.

I made quick work of pulling my pants on, knowing full well that the level of Castiella's naughtiness by far outranked mine. Her hips swayed as she approached Cal, a prowl more like. The way her fingers curled around the fabric of dress and her back arched...I didn't have to look at her face to see the tell-tale heat in her eyes or the subtle bite to the inside of her mouth to know that Castiella was still horny. No surprise, considering the interruption had been on her time.

I couldn't even blame her for these wicked thoughts. I would have the same ones should I have been in a world where there were two of her, both very interested in sleeping with me. I would let her have her fantasies, but I wasn't about to let her realize them.

"Cas," I warned, when she reached Cal and took the flushed idiot by the front of his shirt. There was a sly grin on Cal's face, ego inflating with her attention on him. "Don't be looking all smug, Cal. She's not choosing you over me."

Fully clothed, I collected Cassie up by her waist and pulled her away from my doppelganger. Then nudged her into the hallway and away from the bed before she attacked both of us.

"You sure?" Cal snickered, following us out into the main area of Goodfellow's apartment.

In the kitchen, Niko was working on creating his version of breakfast. Apparently he and Cal had stopped by a produce market on the way over and my brother commandeered Goodfellow's blender, which probably hadn't seen anything other than ice and alcohol for a very long time.

Cal had obviously opted for breakfast burritos, as there were a stack of foil wrapped lumps in the center of the kitchen island. Four of them, which meant he was being thoughtful enough to bring extras for Cassie and me without even asking. Probably more for Cas than me.

"Of all the wonderful foods this world has to offer and you choose to eat it masticated like a little baby bird," Goodfellow was muttering when we entered. For once, he wasn't complaining about my eating habits. The puck stole a few blueberries from the stash Niko had brought. He popped one into his mouth and moved off to get some coffee, muttering about the textures of fruits in gratuitous detail.

As much as I didn't want to listen to his prattling, I more so didn't want to hear Cal preening his ego behind me. "Her attention seems to be waning, Caliban."

"Keep dreaming," I retorted and leaned against the counter as Cassie hoisted herself onto one of the barstools pulled over from the wetbar. "She's trying to get us both in bed. Simultaneously."

Cal tensed as he reached for one of the burritos. The blender stopped abruptly right as I said it too, though that was pure coincidence and perfect timing. Niko did stare, quite aghast, while Robin smirked and said exactly what I'd been thinking earlier. "I highly doubt the same fantasy wouldn't occur to you if presented with two Castiellas."

"Which is why I'm not mad, I'm just saying no," I threw the last world at Cassie and she pouted adorably. "Although I will admit this is slightly less disturbing than you trying to get Nik and me in bed."

"I think we'd have to invite Promise at this point and that's just too much going on," Cassie replied amiably. She took up one of the foil wrapped bundles and peeled it open to reveal the warm tortilla wrap beneath. She shot me a sidelong glance, her eyes still twinkling. "Of course, if she said it was okay…"

"No."

There was a pregnant pause in the room as Cas sneered at her burrito and took a bite. Cal hesitantly follow suit, clearly having trouble swallowing down her fantasies of brotherly incest more than the breakfast burrito.

"Is she always like this or has the…situation inspired this behavior?" Niko asked. He glanced between me and his brother of this world, before he poured his purple-hued slop into a glass with the concentration of a man desperate of distraction.

"Is she always horny as her best friend in the spring?" I chuckled. "Yes. Apparently, it's an Auphe thing. Just be happy our walls reach the ceiling in our new digs. Sound proofed too though sometimes even that can't contain her."

Niko dropped it, obviously wanting no more information on the subject. I could see that smirk flicker over Cal's features; no doubt some savory images were flitting through his currently abstinent by default brain made vibrant by the real life show Cassie had been giving him in the bedroom. I'd let him have those. It was least I could do. She really knew how to entice me, no matter the world.

"Perhaps we should get back to discussing the situation with Grimm?" Niko suggested. It was more of a plea.

"Without knowing where they are, we're going to have to draw them out with bait." I leveled my lover with a dark glare at her response. She continued picking the bacon out of her burrito and popping the bits into her mouth, without even looking in my directions. "I didn't say me, little lamb, cool your chivalry."

"It would be more successful if we could set up an ambush," Nik said, building off of Cassie's comment. "We were able to surprise him at Fort Tilden, if we could recreate that kind of environment we might be able to catch them both off guard. Use Cal," he motioned to me. "As a surprise attack. Neither of them know you're here and while they have realized my little brother's gates are less than reliable right now, yours are functioning fine."

"Better than fine," I offered. "Cassie's taught me a few more tricks. Gates can be projected like a razor sheet as well as inside someone to pop them like a piñata."

There was an odd pause after I spoke. Niko shifted in discomfort, but if it had only been him I would have just assumed we were going down the 'gates are bad' road again, even if he did suggest it. Having Cal grimace and Cassie frown made me consider it something more. "What did I miss?"

"Our Grimm tried to put a gate in Niko as a threat to Cal," Cas answered for the brothers. She coasted a hand down Cal's back beside her, rubbing a few circles to comfort. "Didn't mean for him to learn the tricks as well."

"They're breaking the agreement then," I asked. "No holds barred. They'll go after Nik and Robin as quickly as they will me." Cassie nodded. I clenched my jaw and leaned against the granite island. "Fuck."

Goodfellow's cell went off to break the tense quiet in the room and, after tossing another blueberry into his mouth as he checked the caller, the puck smiled and answered with a coo. "Hello, handsome. One night away and you can't stand it, can you? Calling me and begging for my –what?"

I gathered it was Ishiah and would have been happy that the peri interrupted a line of conversation that was sure to get more pornographic than even Cas and my morning activities. I wasn't happy though, because Robin cut off with shock in his voice. He stood straight from the counter he'd been leaned against, shifted green eyes between Cassie and me, then spun around to face the sink. "What do you mean? Which one?"

None of us had superhuman hearing. If Promise or Rafferty were in the room they would have been able to give us a play-by-play, but even Cassie's ears weren't much better than a human's. So we waiting in tense silence, all trying to read between the only lines of the conversation we were getting.

"Well, we can't. I don't care what they're saying. There is a timeline here and we can't rush it." Robin's shoulders were hunched. He was rolling another blueberry between his fingers, but ultimately threw it into the sink where it splattered along the stainless steel. "She isn't the Castiella of our world, Cronos has nothing to do with…no…possibly." He turned to glanced at us over his shoulder, then sighed. "We can't open the gate now and get you home, can we?"

"No," I answered flatly. Unless they got the Ring up and running early and Dante got impatient, we were stuck with waiting another fifty-nine hours by my watch's count. "Why would we need to? Grimm is still here."

Goodfellow turned his attention back to the phone, ignoring my question. He tried to vacate the kitchen, but Cal stuck out a leg, distracting him long enough for Niko to yank him back to the counter and stand in front of him. The puck might have been able to avoid us, but he knew it would just be temporary. Even after Cassie and I left for our home, Nik and Cal would harangue him until he broke down and told them what this was about.

"Ishiah, I'm currently being held hostage by several uninvolved parties, who will unequivocally have many world-changing questions should we proceed with our conversation. I can't really discuss this." There was a slight pause, wherein Robin adjusted the shoulders of Niko's shirt and listened to Ishiah. He was probably trying to get my brother to retreat from the contact, as Robin had been very aggressive with his affections for Niko in the past, but my brother remained at his post undaunted. "Ishiah, I do not have the slightest loyalty to your righteous brethren and can only suggest you tell them to shove that staff up one of their tight, feathered posteriors until our hours are up. The demons have no means to detect the artifact unless Heaven can't keep its mouth shut and we don't have the time or energy to deal with their problems right now."

He hung up on his lover and offered Niko a charming grin. "Sorry about that. Ishaih sometimes believes I wish for world peace and paien and angel merrily dance around a maypole with the humans."

"Why did he want us to leave?" I countered.

"He wanted my help, but he knows my interests lie unquestioningly with Castiella. Until you are home safe and sound, I will not be helping him sort out his issues with the angels."

Cassie shook her head slowly beside me. "Peris are angels in this world," she murmured unable to make that mental hurdle as well. "It's so strange."

It wasn't the first time angels had been brought up, demons either, but it was still such a foreign concept. We'd already determined that they didn't exist in my world. It had been a long, counterproductive conversation last night and the one I had interrupted in favor of sleep.

Heaven and Hell were just words in a book in our world. How or who created our world was a mystery, but one Cassie and I didn't care to solve. We had enough trouble with the enemies we had, we didn't need to cook up more and _angels_…well, there was no way they would take well to two Auphelings. Robin had even mentioned that Castiella in their world had been hunted by the angels throughout her time on Earth due to her conception and that was on top of the Auphe's pursuit.

"That was it?" Niko challenged. "Ishiah was rushing our situation to gain your assistance with the angels?"

"Yes, so thank you for giving me a legitimate reason to get out of that." The puck picked up his coffee and took a long sip. "And before you ask I didn't want to discuss it further because we already have enough on our already full plate. If you truly want to learn more about angels and demons and the silly artifacts and trinkets they constantly battle for possession over, I will be more than willing to give you a full review once we have finished with Grimm."

"Can you shoot a sniper rifle?" Cal asked. He was asking me and I was hardly as startled by the abrupt question as the others in the room. He was already over and accepting Goodfellow's explanation so I was already over and accepting it too. It stood to reason that his former brothers would be eager to use him if he was willing, a peri living respectfully among the paien – it was networking.

"A sniper rifle?" I echoed for those not able to keep up with his…my…train of thought. "Yeah, probably, why?" And then I got it. A grin slid across my face and the Auphe in me in coiled like a tiger spotting prey after a noon-day nap. "Nice. That would certainly be a surprise ambush. If you could get me in the right position I can give you at least one headshot before the Grimm Brothers figure out they're screwed."

Cal nodded with the same lethal smile on his face and looked back at his brother. "I think we need to pay Rapture a visit."

My brother from another world let his shoulders drop in defeat and turned away from Robin. The puck was getting away with his excuse for now, but Niko would want to know every slightest bit of angelic and demonic info he could soak up once this was all over. I could do without it. If Cassie says they don't exist, then I'm happy to believe that. She had lived long enough and with a puck that was around for the conception of Earth, which gave her resolve enough credibility for me.

"Fine, but I think Cassie should come with us," Niko replied.

"Why?"

Cassie patted me on the shoulder for my growl. "Because you can't be seen and I can gate us out of trouble, if trouble comes knocking."

"I'll keep you company, Caliban," Goodfellow offered with a beatific smile. I felt a chill rush up my spine and gazed pleadingly at my lover, but despite my grousing and groaning they left me there. Stuck with the puck, under house arrest, and none too pleased about it.


	17. Chapter 17 - Caliban

**CHAPTER SEVENTEEN**

**CALIBAN**

There were some early childhood memories I still could conjure. Most of them, as one could guess, weren't pleasant. Sophia always made sure I regretted ever being born, just as Niko always tried his damnedest to give me memories worth living for. And considering I was still going strong, Nik won that race.

But some memories, an unsurprising few, didn't involve either of them – the she-devil that bore me or my guardian angel. One in particular was coming to mind when Cal winked at me as he closed Robin's front door on his way to Rapture's Buns with my girlfriend under my arm.

It was elementary school, kindergarten I would assume since the class was gathered around in a circle on a green carpet playing with toys that the school system probably claimed encouraged motor skills or creativity. Even at that age there were few that dared associate with me. And I was a biter, so I had to sit beside the teacher during the strange rendition of indoor recess.

One kid, I would be hard pressed to remember his name, but I did remember he always smelled like chicken curry without the slightest ethnic or cultural reason for that be so. He brought in a toy from home. Didn't remember what it was, a train or a Transformer. He flitted around the classroom showing it off and letting the others play with it. He even let the kid that liked to lick everything have a go, but when the blond shithead came to me he held it close to chest, smiled, and walked on by.

Now at, what, five-years-old, it didn't matter if I even liked that toy. I wanted it because I couldn't have it. So when school was done and Chicken Curry left it in his cubby to play with it tomorrow, I snuck back in, stole the toy, and coveted it for weeks under my mattress. When Niko found out what I'd done, because he always found out, he made me put it back. Didn't make me apologize or hand it back in person, but he still made me put it back in that little twerp's cubby, because it wasn't mine.

Cassie wasn't a toy and she would always be something I remembered; every detail and curve, and every shift from pale peach to white scar on her skin, but she was for, all intensive purposes, something Cal couldn't have. And I flaunted her. I showed him how amazing she was, so he stole her from me.

I knew that was what he'd been thinking when he smiled at me. I knew because I remembered what that smile felt like when I clasped that toy and stowed it away in my bag. Cal was stealing my treasure because he couldn't have it and I let him. Niko wouldn't have to force him to give her back this time. Cal was old enough now to realize he had no choice in the matter and this treasure was going to walk out of his left whether he liked it or not.

These realization and understandings didn't smooth my ruffled feathers though and with a clawed swipe I grabbed one of the leftover burritos and threw it into the microwave. Goodfellow was watching me like a lab coat studying a mouse he'd just drugged, waiting to see if I would explode or just roll over belly up in defeat.

"You are being ever so generous with him," the puck commented. I continued to watch the tortilla bundle spin around through the microwave window. "The likeness is uncanny and transcendent. The same boy carbon copied into another world, living the same events and tragedies. It is all so very…unlike your creator. Although life is always so tumultuous and chaotic with you brothers and returning Castiella to existence might have been like watching an old spaghetti western for him. How many times has the world almost ended in your realm? That always seems to be a favored pastime of his."

"Robin, I don't really feel like knowing the meaning of life or where I came from. I don't want to know why Hell created us. I'm perfectly happy living with blinders on."

"Not Hell. They don't have that power without a vessel. Lucifer can shape a world, but he cannot create it."

"I don't want to know."

He freshened up his coffee as I wrapped the burrito in a paper towel and took a vicious bite that I knew would burn the roof of my mouth. Robin braced to the chrome stove opposite me, smiling the smile of man who knew a secret.

"How many are yours?"

I took another bite of egg and bacon and spoke around it. "How many what are mine?"

"Dante, Josh, Connor. How many are yours?"

I swallowed the hunk of burrito, suddenly grateful that Cal decided his revenge would have him and Niko out of Robin's apartment. "What is with you people here? If someone told me I shouldn't know something because it would suck to know I wouldn't screw with it. Hence why I don't want you telling me about the big bang of my world."

"Oh, but it's such an interesting tale filled with mystery and thrills." Goodfellow paused, thrummed his fingers to his stove, and lifted his eyebrows. "Your world, as I've deduced with my unmatched wit, intelligence, has been hidden from all others since its conception."

I walked away from him as I took another large bite of my breakfast. I wasn't being cavalier when I said I didn't want to know. Recognizing that there were hundreds of other worlds out there, and not the kind that supported alien life on planets outside of our universe because that actually seemed more feasible at this point, was boggling enough on my brain. Meeting myself, my doppelganger, was enough for me. I didn't need to know more. I didn't need to know what god or devil formed the Earth I called home and I didn't need to know what its reasons were. Because I wouldn't like them. If I was just its entertainment, I'd be pissed. Unsurprised, but pissed.

"You are not curious enough, Caliban," Goodfellow called from the kitchen. He followed me into his living room and, though he sneered when I flopped down on his immaculate couch with pieces of egg dropping to his carpet, he didn't complain. Not about that, at least. "Apparently that is a trait that follows you. Always taking up arms without understanding the war you fight. I supposed it started with Patroclus."

"Who?"

Goodfellow tilted his head, grinning like a fox-in-a-henhouse with just those green eyes. "Curiosity is a wonderful human trait. Leads to so many opportunities to teach your kind how truly small they are. You are just a small spec on this magnificent painting we call life. Curiosity also allows you to be prepared. Prepared to fight for those you love. Like Niko and Cas. Like your children."

I leveled him with a stiff glare as he stood over me. I knew he wasn't going to let that go, but I supposed it was better than telling me why the god that created me enjoyed chewing me up and spitting me out so much.

"He saw, didn't he?" the puck went on. "Grimm saw what you created. That is why he's after Castiella. I assume it was the Vigil using technology that should not be in their hands that allowed her fertility, though I'm surprised you chanced the consequence even if for sex with a creature as amazing as our little Harbinger."

"They didn't tell us. We thought she was still barren."

"Three times?"

I scowled and gave up. "Two. Dante and Connor. Josh is just George's fiancé. A total asshole, but…well, he's a good guy."

"Meaning he's only an asshole to you."

I though about that for a second, then snorted out a laugh. "Yeah, actually."

Robin eased down onto the couch beside me. I tossed the rest of the burrito to his coffee table; no longer hungry. He stared at the scattered mess it made, which was mostly contained by the paper towel.

"You're a father…," he murmured almost to himself. I scoffed and kicked my feet up onto his glass coffee table. Robin leaned forward and shoved my boots back to the floor. "That is a frightening thought. And you risked leaving them to come here? I understand how great your love is for Castiella—"

"Niko's with them. Something happens to me and they will probably better for it with him." I sagged into the couch and ran both my hands over my face. It had been a huge risk. I could have been exploded into anti-matter. I could have died, but I knew Dante and Connor would be safe. Always be safe with my brother. It was cruel to shirk that responsibility off on him after I'd basically taken his life away when he devoted it to me, but I had no other choice. I wasn't leaving Cassie locked up in an unknown hell, especially not with Grimm. "Is this why you wanted me to stay here? To talk about my kids?"

"It can't happen in this world, well, Cal is too guarded for it to happen. I understand that you do not want to tempt him. His fear that the child would be a murderous villain could be realized quiet easily if he tried to reproduce, but it has happened in your world, so I can vicariously ask through you. Were those fears realized?"

"No." I weight my head left and right for a moment. "And yes, with Dante. Connor's only a few months old, so he's still a wild card, but other than having banshee lungs he's normal. Which is awesome because for a while there we weren't sure who the father was."

Robin's eyebrows nearly shot up into his hairline. "Grimm?"

I nodded and took a hearty swig of stout beer. "Either Grimm or my frozen sperm in the crazy Vigil labs."

His nose wrinkled through a sad smile. "You didn't even get to make him the fun way?"

I laughed at that, feeling a little more relaxed in the conversation. Was this what normal people did? Felt at ease when talking about their kids? If so, it was no wonder they shoved baby pictures down your throat on social networking sites. "We got to make Dante the fun way. So many fun ways that we have no idea when he was actually made."

"And Dante is how old?"

I leaned back on the couch, another chug from the beer. I tried to think of the best way to explain that one. "You know how I'm technically supposed to be twenty-four, but I'm really closer to twenty-six?" The puck just waited on that one; he knew the answer and probably knew where I was going with this. "Dante's at least fifteen. We're calling it sixteen for his birthday last month and leaving it at that."

Goodfellow went quiet for a moment. "I see. Some fears will always be realized then. How did he fare? I recall the time I attempted to hypnotize your memories of Tumulus to the surface. A terrible thing to do, I apologize. But it was good for me to see the animal you have been reduced to there. Helped me understand that not matter how many forks you stabbed me with there was always a lower point and you have successfully remained above it all this time."

There was a compliment somewhere in there I was sure, but I wasn't fishing for it. "He fared better than Cas or me. A decade in Tumulus and he's saner than any of us. The Auphe are different now. They are the remnants of a nest that survived the nuke. No one left to tell them their grand plan with Darkling or how to take over the world. Auphe-elders weren't big on how-to tomes, lucky us. They're still a danger, but I assume Dante's time with them could have been worse…maybe. He got internet access and cable at least."

"Teachers and learning didn't do Grimm much good," Robin pointed out. He leaned over to clink his bottle to mine. "But Dante belongs to you and Cassie. I would say it was your love that kept him sane, knowing in his heart that you loved him." I would have argued, but somehow it had. A fraction of a memory kept Dante with us; he was just that strong and sound of mind.

"I'm serious, Loman. You can't tell Cal or Nik about this. I know I'd be much happier not knowing that the kids I'll never have make me the happiest I've ever been."

"They do seem to have sedated you a bit. I don't know if we've ever had a conversation this long without you cursing or throwing something."

"My sedation is relative. Riordyn o'Conaill would be quick to correct you."

The puck's eyebrows lifted again, though this time more in curiosity. "o'Conaill? A púca?"

I nodded, only partially surprised he knew the species by a generic name. "Dante's love interest. Hopefully, only for the moment. He's too old for Dante and annoyingly defiant."

There was a brief pause from Robin beside me. His tone switched over to the usual mocking like someone switched the tracks over on an incoming train. "You are aware of Castiella's age, aren't you?" I glared, but he kept going, grinning now. "And Promise? The significant others of the Leandros family seem to hold a pattern of momentous age gaps and you are the worst offender at nearly three thousand years."

I glowered a little harder. "Relative."

Smirking around the mouth of his beer bottle, Robin gave me a wink. "You are taking to fatherhood by way of papa with a shotgun, aren't you?"

"Surprised?"

"Not in the slightest," he replied, then patted my knee. "And don't fret. These secrets, like many others, are safe with me."

"Yeah, about that," I murmured with a cringe. While I believe Robin would never breathe a word of my children to the brothers I still didn't like the idea of leaving them with the knowledge of another world; a world where Cassie existed. "I have a suggestion…a plan…and you're not going to like it, but I need you to do it."

The puck ticked his head to one side as he read me, actually keeping his mouth shut as I told him my plan. It was a low point when a puck that made a living out of swindling people and a hobby out of tricking them (into his bed) stared at you like you were a cruel bastard for your deceit. He ran a hand over his curly hair, sighed, but he said he would be my cohort and inside man and that was a burden lifted.

Several hours later, Goodfellow wasn't as pleased with his choice to keep me company while I was under house arrest, but my displeasure far outweighed his own. I hated being cooped up when I was told I had to be cooped up. Moreover I didn't like being separated from Cassie after I'd just gotten to her. I was fine within the hour, but when the second one started ticking by even the pizza Goodfellow ordered and his flat screen television weren't enough to sate my concern.

"You seem to have more energy than our Cal," Goodfellow muttered from his seat kicked back on his high-end lazy-boy that likely had two names on the brand. "All that exercise and baby making must have boasted you serotonin levels."

I flipped him off and kept pacing behind the couch. "What's taking them so long?"

"They're trying to discreetly transport a sniper rifle on public transportation. It takes time."

"Two hours?" I countered.

"They're fine."

"She's been here for a less than a week. How many times has Grimm, either of them, attacked her?"

Goodfellow stayed quiet, which was telling enough. I was staring at the back of his curly head, but I knew the expression he wore. I'd worn it countless times myself. Concealed nerves. They were taking too long and I didn't think it had anything to do with Cal teaching me a lesson in humility by taking my toy away anymore.

"What do you suggest, Caliban?"

Go out, find them, and kill Grimm because I knew he had her. I just knew it in my gut, but I didn't get a chance to form the words let alone complete my thought before a gate exploded in the center of the room not a foot from my boots. I hopped back away from it like it was spillage from a septic tank.

By exploded, I mean literally. The gate ripped out from a low center point like a stain of ink bleeding on a white shirt. Then it supernova-ed in all directions to a six foot circle, which was what I evaded. The edges crackled, then the whole thing dropped to the ground and splashed across the floor water-balloon style before imploding with the same violence.

Goodfellow cursed behind me; he was slow to get up, but only as he hadn't sensed gates like I did. He reacted to my initial jolt, then saw the show with me. The gate faded under three forms. All three were covered in blood spatter, but I couldn't tell who was bleeding. Cal was center, naturally. He held Cassie in his arms in a protective cradle that gave me gut-wrenching flashbacks of when I shut her gate on her in the middle of a fight with Ishiah's pious brothers.

She was unconscious and Niko was on one knee breathing heavy beside Cal.

"Bacchus be damned, what happened?"

"Grimm, the other one," Cal supplied. His eyes were a bit wild when he looked up at us. "Caught us as we got to the Ninth."

"The Ninth?" Goodfellow echoed balefully.

"Ishiah called Nik, had a question or something, but they attacked before we got there."

"Where's Ishiah?"

"Wasn't outside," Cal told him, then amended with dread. "Call him. Grimm's not above hostages."

I knelt beside Cal. He seemed well enough, though the bulge in his side indicated one of his ribs were no longer just fractured. With the adrenaline he hadn't seemed to notice yet so I wasn't going to point it out. Cassie was asleep, but that might have had more to do with the needle sticking out of her neck. It looked like an epi-pen, but I knew it held the opposite of stimulant.

"Take her," Cal instructed and I did, plucking the needle out. Cal swung around to his brother, no concern for the rib pressing against his skin. A hurt big brother would blind me to pain any day of the week. "We need to get to a hospital."

Niko shook his head at Cal's request. I saw it then, the blood gushing out from under a hand he had clamped over his throat. My heart started producing ice octane to pump through my veins. Niko dropped his other knee to the floor.

"Don't you dare," Cal hissed when Nik's eyes hooded drowsily. The younger brother shucked his shirt, pulled Niko's hand away and pressed it to the four deep gashes on Niko's throat. That clawed glove, Grimm's fucking clawed glove did that.

I ripped off my own shirt, slicing my serrated Ka-bar up the front. It was a meager wrapping, but we needed something before Niko bled out. Damn it, my brother was not bleeding out.

Goodfellow was still on the phone, but had the foresight to be moving while checking on his lover. He joined the circle in his living room with a medical bag like Niko's, only this one didn't have bandages, mecuricome, and mid-grade pain killers. It was chock full of bottles. Ones you would find empty on the antique store shelves or in the basement of a haunted Victorian house. He sifted through with the phone wedged to his ear, switching between instructing Cal and barking at Ishiah seamlessly. "I don't care if you own it, leave the bar and get over here –Use this one it will slow the blood flow quicker –Ishiah, do not argue with me right now. I have the battle of Troy laid out on my living room floor and you will not be next— This, it will create a tacky substance when mixed with that bottle. We'll stitch it later, glue it now."

Cal didn't argue and went to work. I eased Cassie to the floor; she wasn't hurt –just drugged and I could see Niko listing. He lifted a hand to Cal's neck, both using it to brace himself as well as pull his brother closer to give that last breath speech.

I caught Niko before he collapsed to the other side. Bringing his head down to my lap I put more pressure on the damp tee and motioned for Cal to keep working. "We got you, Nik. As long as there's a speck of blood left in you, we got you and you still have a couple pints. Save the pretty speech for later."

Niko tried to speak anyway, but it came out as a grunted gurgle. My heart was racing. I wanted to tell Cal to hurry the fuck up, but he was going as fast as the solvent would allow. This wasn't my brother, but that made no difference. He raised Cal exactly as he had me in another world. He had been the same loyal to a fault, unflappable constant that kept me alive, loved, and off the monster path.

If I got him killed…

"Don't you start thinking that shit," Cal growled at me, without even looking up. The solvent was ready and I peeled back the tie and padding. The liquid Robin had first given us slowed the blood flow –at least I hoped that was why it slowed – but little rivulets still dribbled out around the clot. Cal didn't bother to clean the wound off, he just started slathering on the tack glue with his fingers like a kindergartener with finger paints. "We aren't losing him. You know that, don't think otherwise."

"What happened?" I asked. "How did Grimm even get the drop on Nik?"

Cal grimaced when his fingers stuck to Niko's skin. He had to peel it off slowly so not to break the seal he'd just set. "He gated behind him and cut with that damned clawed glove. No warning, no taunting, nothing. Niko only had enough time to dodge being slashes from ear to ear. The other one caught Cassie when she sprung to attack. She didn't want to show him her gates or she didn't remember she had them. Cause she tried to go toe to toe with him." He finally got his hand clear and surveyed the wound. The sealant was sloppy and littered with ridges and fingerprints, but the bleeding had stopped. Niko's eyes were barely a fraction open, but I could see gray iris around the dilated pupil, which was better than the whites of rolled back eyes.

I touched my hand to his forehead. He was already burning up. "He got the drugs in Cassie. She went down, then what?"

"I panicked, grabbed them both and gated. I think, or it was Cassie's and I high-jacked it again," Cal shook his head. "He needs blood."

"On it," Goodfellow called with unusually concise briskness. He was standing, pacing, on the phone a few feet from the blood ring on the floor. "Just bring O negative. Four pints to be safe."

"Grimm started talking as I gated, I don't think he expected me to get out. Hell, I didn't expect it would work." Cal sat back on his legs. Shock was setting it. I was about to smack him, but Robin's shout did the trick.

"Human! Human blood, you daft fool!" The puck turned on his loafers and stomped in the other direction. "Who calls to request the blood of a leech? Or that disgusting excrement the Wolves claim is their blood? Human! I need four pints of O negative, human blood. Double the cost if you get here in less than ten minutes."

Cal and I both gazed down at Niko, wondering the same thing that we didn't dare say aloud. Did he even have ten minutes? Cal took up his brother's hand, clutching it as if they would arm wrestle. "Come on, Nik. Stay with us. Squeeze my hand for every wrong answer. The capital of Georgia is Atlanta."

"No, that's actually correct," Goodfellow chided from behind.

"Shit. The uh, the Axis powers were Germany, Japan, and…er China." Niko's fingers twitched in a weak squeeze, there was even an hint of a smile on his face.

Over Cal's knee, I saw Cassie's head tilted toward us, eyes bleary but open. She likely wouldn't be able to move for a while, but she was conscious and her breathing steady. I shifted to go to her, but she shook her head. "Stay."

Cal glanced back at her voice, soft as a feather. He reached behind him and braced his other hand over her kneecap. That hand was fisted, probably glued closed from the solvent. "You okay?"

She nodded. "Nik." It was a whisper of a command, but both Cal and I stayed with Niko as she demanded. She wasn't hurt, and if Grimm came in here both he and Robin's apartment would be in pieces with my projected gates. Partially because I hadn't really mastered them yet, but that wouldn't stop me from using them.

Goodfellow dropped a hand to Cal's head. "A contact is bringing us supplies. In the meantime, let's get him off the floor. And wash your hands with vinegar and baking powder, Cal. The Saw-Weather Dew will rip off your skin when you try to open that palm otherwise."

I let Robin and Cal take Niko to the bedroom moving to Cassie's side. I lifted her up in my arms and carried her to the couch. She was hurt. Hid it well, but Grimm had gotten a piece of her hip, scraped down to the bone. I imagined it was a vicious knee-jerk reaction when she plowed him down, before the Grimm of our world chloroformed her. Being so small, Cassie used her full weight to make an impact on an enemy. Grimm, whichever one hurt Nik, probably slashed her from the flat of his back. At least there wasn't much between her skin and bone in that area, not as much blood.

"When were you going to confess to this, hm?" She offered me a half paralyzed smile, lifted a hand to touch my arm and ended up dropping it halfway through. It flopped across my wrist. I cupped her hand in mine, kissed her knuckles, then placed it across her chest to keep it out of my way. "How are you not immune to this stuff yet? They shoot you up with it enough. And how did Grimm even get a hold of it?"

"Bag," Cassie murmured. "Full of 'em. Vigil."

"Probably meant for him if he got out of line," I grumbled. The wound was deep, but thin. A few of the slashes had already clotted and would be sealed over with new skin by morning. The two middle ones were parted to show muscle and bone, though. I ripped the side of her dress open. "You need stitches too. I'll be right back."

I checked the solvent Cal had left spilling on Goodfellow's floor. Most of it had dried out to old rubber cement consistency, but there was a little left at the bottom. I used the Ka-bar to scrap it out and dabbed the tip of the blade over the part of her skin, used the flat to press the edges together. Blood oozed out, beading under the solvent but it wasn't much.

Cassie's hand brushed me again, this time with enough coordination to prop on my shoulder and run her fingers behind my ear. "He's the Highlander."

I glanced up at her, then couldn't help but laugh. She was trying to comfort me, telling me Niko would be all right, because she knew that was what currently occupied my mind. "I know."

There was a polite knock on the front door and Robin bustled out of his bedroom, wiping his hands off on a hotel-white hand towel. He pulled his wallet out with the distracted look of a man planning his entire first date in the thirty seconds it took to open the door. Money was exchanged for a Styrofoam cooler and the supplier left without an invitation in. Robin paused on his way back, seeing that I was using the glue and not just coddling my drugged girlfriend. "She's hurt?"

"Nik, first. Cassie can handle these scratches."

Goodfellow nodded and took the cooler into his room. I brushed Cassie's hair from her face and bent to kiss her forehead. "Tomorrow," I said levelly. "Tomorrow we are killing these bastards."

Cassie nodded and took my hand, her muscles twitched out of her control a little. "I'm with you."


	18. Chapter 18 - Caliban

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

CALIBAN

It paid off to know all the snitches in New York City. The paien moles and rats that would sell out their sister for a stack of twenties or a pint of human blood. We didn't have any of the latter to spare and Mickey was begging a ridiculous price for the former. Good thing I was also very friendly with Lock and Barrel.

The rat, even as a paien, curled up on the loose gravel of the abandoned car lot with both hands up over his wide head. "What the hell is wrong with you? How are you going to get information out of a dead man?"

Mickey tried to bat the barrel of the Desert Eagle to the side like a hot potato wrapped in tinfoil. It was an intimidating weapon to begin with, some might say an extension for overcompensation, but when I've faced down as many behemoths as I have a little 22 with a silencer or revolver wasn't going to cut it. Besides it made me feel like a bad ass when I was younger, now it just felt like an extension of my arm. My version of Auphe claws.

"I'm losing patience, Mickey and you're lucky I have any left. Where is Grimm? He looks like a tan albino alligator with metal shark teeth, I know you've seen him."

"You're not going to pay me, why should I speak?" He raised a brave chin, even with his hands up, crouched in a ball at my feet. I'd come here alone, wanting Cal to stay with Nik, but Cassie had found me. She as waiting at the metal gate, in view and close enough for me to give aid should the red-eyed bastards drop in. She sat on the hood of a half-totaled Ford pick-up, peeling away paint and rust. Nice to know interrogation by gun point had become a bore to her.

"Mickey, I never said I wouldn't pay you. I'm just not gullible enough to pay you two thousand dollars."

"It pays a debt, man."

"Sorry to hear that, but it's two hundred or lead."

"You wouldn't kill me."

"How many times have we actually needed you? I have more friends in the gutter than you know."

"What if I don't know?"

I snorted. "You would have pleaded that case when the gun came out."

After another pause, he held out his hand palm up like a beggar he was. I slapped two hundreds, stolen from Nik's wallet into that hand but kept the gun trained. "The strixies say North Brother Island, but—"

I dropped my aim and cursed before he even finished. Of course. It was separated from the main island, but close enough for quick trips. It was abandoned for nearly fifty years, a sanctuary for birds and avian paien, and Grimm had used it as a hideout in our world too.

Cassie hopped down from the hood of the mangled truck and walked over to us. She'd been distancing herself from me to keep Mickey from figuring out our relationship. Cal didn't have a girlfriend in this world, it was better for Mickey to think her an associate, not a lover. She asked him to continue and he did so while easing up off the ground. His tail continued to twitch nervously.

"He's been spotted on Ward's Island and Riker's as well."

Cassie bent and kissed Mickey on the cheek, playing bubbly peri for sport. "Thank you, Mickey."

She took my wrist holding the gun to steer me away. I painted on a scowl and yanked away. Turning back to the rat, as he cowered in my temper. In this scenario half Auphe didn't play well with peri. It would also give reason for her to never show again. Mickey would think she left cause she couldn't stand me or that I'd killed her. Plus I wasn't done with Mickey now that he was being more compliant. "You know a Nero Gray? He in the city?"

"Nero, the Awenn Greghad brat? His brother killed him three weeks ago."

I cursed and jerked my gun in an air punch. My plan wasn't going to fly for one second unless I fixed Niko up better than stitches and a lasting scar. Cassie watched me for a moment. Her mahogany eyes trailed off to the side. "Mickey, what about his product?" she asked, catching on quickly that I wanted to seal up Niko's neck wound with more than glue. "The healing salves and other lotions?"

"Dodger's selling them out of pocket underground." Mickey replied, not trying to swindle the little smiling angel in front of them. "But they'd be pricey."

That was fine. I was just going to be sending Robin off to get the tins anyway. Last time I met up with Dodger he flipped his shit when he sensed I was Auphe; he wasn't soon going to forget that either. "Let's go," I told Cassie. Done with the rat and leaving healing salves and annoying jackdaws for another day.

As we turned, I was suddenly staring at a mirror, a mirror with bags under his eyes and a super pissed off scowl. I swung around and pistol-whipped Mickey before he caught a glimpse. He went down without a peep, but his hundreds started flittering away. Cassie sighed and went to collect them while I spun back at Cal and pointed an accusatory finger at him from around my gun grip. "What are you doing? People will fucking riot if they see two of us walking around!"

"You are the asshole who left without explanation," he replied, stalking over to us through the open chain-link gate.

Cassie tucked the hundreds into Mickey's front shirt pocket, then came up behind me and tugged the hood I'd forgotten was under my borrowed jacket over my head. "Is Robin with Niko?" she asked.

"Promise is. Goodfellow is waiting in a car around the corner and anyone sees me in two places at once that's your fault. This is my world."

"How did you even find me?" I wasn't lying to Mickey when I said we had other contacts with ears to the paien ground and I doubted it was chance that brought Cal to this one.

"You stole my phone, genius." He held up one that I assumed was Niko's. Ever since I started gating when it was more convenient than pedestrian walking, Niko had plugged a GPS locator into my phone and every one thereafter. Maybe I had subconsciously grabbed it knowing I would need someone to pull me out of the flames. Knowing I would fly off the handle, guns blazing, and go after the Gemini twins on my own.

The Calvary came to me though, regardless to the usual lead warrior being bedridden and two pints under.

I holstered the Eagle, wrapped an arm around Cassie's waist, and made for the exit of the abandoned junkyard. Cal stepped back as Cas and I pulled the wire gate closed so Mickey was safe until he came around. "Is it just you two or did you bring party favors?" I asked.

Cal grinned the devil's grin. "You of all people should know me better. Noise makers and confetti for everyone."

"Good. They're shacked up along North Brother Island. Let's go pay them a visit."

North Brother Island was barely a half mile across. Once a quarantined home for Typhod Mary and various hospitals now beyond derelict after fifty plus years of neglect. It was one of those places that sat as an above-ground time capsule with old books, toys, and jars lying around inside houses taken over by nature. Ghost stories were ripe for the picking here and you couldn't take one step without sliding through bird shit.

I'd gated to the island, taking everyone with me. If the Grimm Brothers noticed, they would think Cal was getting a better grip on his gates, because as soon as land was under our feet he went stomping down the main road with a flamethrower not looking for any cover. I left Cassie with Goodfellow only because this was the end game and she promised not to hold back anymore. Gates ahoy, gates for all. That promise only lessened the strain on my nerves slightly, as I bled into scenery, picking out a path in opposite direction.

Last time I was here snow covered most of the avian landmines. It had also been well past migrating season, so the catastrophic symphony of birds bitching hadn't been so deafening. All the better though. My steps were silent under the din as I slipped through the overgrowth, which hid me better than bare winter trees. I ghosted in through the open door of a condemned brownstone, finding inventive ways to get to the roof without traditional stairs erect. I took position on the roof as the trigger for the grand finale.

Cal started shouting about the time I got on the roof, favoring the soft spots so I didn't fall through. He was channeling his rage for them nearly killing Niko, which I doubted was much of an act. He made a good show of it. Even I was convinced he'd popped out here alone, pissed, and ready for vengeance.

I laid low on the slanted roof, half concealed behind a tattered chimney. I could see Cassie crouched on the fire escape of another, perched on the railing like a bird of pray ready to pounce on a mouse. There was a chance they'd see her, but my girl was more than ready to get some blood under her nails. Convincing her to pull back would be like telling me not to think bad thoughts. Besides I knew the puck was inside the house she stood like a gargoyle on.

Cal was convincing in his 300-level fury. The Grimm of my world, Jacob Grimm as Cal had been calling him, strolled out of one of the lesser ransacked skinny houses like he was going to get the mail…or maybe with his arms crossed and his mouth pursed in a strained smile, maybe like he was coming out to confront a cheating lover.

Cal hadn't seen much in the attack on Niko and Cassie other than red, but he had given a detailed enough account for us to know both Grimms still had all their limbs. Billy Grimm, when he showed, would be sporting a small scar on his neck where Cal's bullet-propelled blade when in, probably the reason he the fucker went Kill Bill on my –Cal's– brother. Jacob Grimm had a metal cuff around his arm, Cal had said. It looked to him like it was drilled in holding his arm together. Just another step toward the Skynet bullshit of my world, but at least Cal also said it had limited motor functions. Pretty good recount for a guy going ballistic when seeing his brother hit the ground.

I could see the metal from my perch. It wrapped around his forearm from elbow crook to wrist. They hadn't gone to a healer, not a credible one, but armor was certainly stronger than flesh and bone against Cassie's claws. Otherwise he was sporting the same buzz-cut, scarred head and faulty king of the world swagger. I was going to love putting this bastard down.

"Did we miss naptime, little brother?" Jacob Grimm teased as he stood High Noon showdown style on the cobble stone and pebble road. Cal went for his Glock, but Grimm dodged the bullet with a gate that shifted him less than foot to the right. In response, Grimm started laughing at his impotency. "So cranky."

"You nearly killed him."

"Nearly?" Jacob Grimm echoed. He took two measured steps to the right again as if he suspected a missile would land on his head if he stayed in one spot for too long. "Well, then it's obviously a job poorly executed by the one of your world. If it had been me it wouldn't have been nearly."

If looks could kill Jacob Grimm would have fell in that moment. Of course, if looks could kill my life would have been marginally easier. Then again, I'd probably end up with Cyclops eyes beaming gates all over unless I wore Raybans.

"And you brought me a present, how sweet," the bastard drawled as Cal fumed. Cal had a pack strapped to his back, holding grenades, extra clips, and a spare tank for the compact flamethrower he held in one hand, braced to his shoulder. It certainly was a present for Grimm, but unfortunately that wasn't what he was referring too.

"Come down here, darling," he called, head tilting toward Cassie's perch. She didn't even wait for Cal to try and deny her presence. Jacob Grimm hadn't pointed her position out directly, but even upwind and with avian shit foul in the air he probably still smelled her; as finely tuned to a fragrance as I was.

Cassie spread her wings and dropped down beside Call with a little leaf tornado kicking up at their feet. "You know what's coming, Grimm. You broke a very strict agreement by hurting Niko. You destroyed any micro-fragment of a possibility you had in Cal assisting you with breeding your army."

"I don't really need Caliban anymore." Jacob Grimm chuckled. "And _I_ did not attack the human, though I wish it had been. I've never seen the two of you quite so delightfully murderous before." He set his sights on Cassie directly. "It reminds me of that night we spend together before coming here. That fire in your eyes as I took you. It's a shame you wouldn't allow me to remove the bindings."

My heart ramped up a few beats per second. I was going to kill everyone involved in his project when I got back. Every bastard that dared to follow through with the treat of giving her to Grimm if I took Connor away. I hadn't though they had; I'd though the rushing of the Roman Ring had been their call to action after I launched an explosive attack on their facilities and broke my baby boy out of jail. I should have known better. If they had the sick minds that would put a bomb in an infant's head, why wouldn't they strap down a woman and let her be raped by a monster to make good on the threat and vaguely veil it as science.

I took in a deep breath. This was over. I wasn't waiting for Billy Grimm to show up. This asshole was going down.

"Where's your other half?" Cassie asked, as if knowing his previous comment would set me off. I slipped through a hole in the roof to drop to the floor below. There was no glass left in the windows of this brick house so their voices echoed enough from the road for me to hear. Cal had brought me a present too. We swung by Rapture's Buns before coming to the island and he came out with Sally. Handed her over to me like it was my birthday.

I took care in assembling each gorgeous matte black piece of her as I crouched under the window facing the street.

"I am not his keeper," Jacob Grimm replied. "He's not here though. Can't allow you that luxury."

"More like you can't stand him," Cassie teased with a growl to her tone. "That should inspire some self reflection, shouldn't it?"

"Have you slept with him yet? He certainly drools at your feet begging for it. It's much easier my way, Cal. No begging required." I heard the slap of Cal's heavy weapon hit his palm when he aimed. I glanced out the window. The flamethrower was wedged under Jacob Grimm's chin, the sleazy bastard slowly let the tendril of Cassie's hair fall from his fingertips. She stepped back, wings fluttering in nervousness that was only half feigned. The things he's done to her were very real and apparently very recent. She and I never talked about it much, maybe we needed to have that conversation. Having him close enough to her to catch her hair froze her blood as it boiled mine to six hundred degrees.

Jacob Grimm eyed the flamethrower with an adequate amount of respect. Unless he gated before Cal pulled the trigger there would be unavoidable burns across his face, neck and upper chest. "You're wasting your time, Cal. She has several ties to my world that will have her pathetically yearning for home. She will never show you that degrading emotion of love you so earnestly desire. If you can give her to me I can help sate the passion to have her. You can fuck her until she's raw—"

The flamethrower ignited, eating up the oxygen in blank air in front of them. I heard a sudden thump and crunch below me and paused in screwing on a heavy silencer to the muzzle of an impressive Savage sniper rifle.

Downstairs Jacob Grimm cursed and patted himself off. I smirked at the musical sound of a man's initial reaction after being blasted by a flamethrower point blank. The full range wouldn't have hit him, but the blue flame of ignition burned hotter than red and I could smell his cooked flesh like a botched BBQ.

A rustle, clang, and glass bottle jingle accompanied his spitting. Outside Cal started shouting, "Ollie, Ollie, oxen free," as he walked down the street toward us. He could smell cooked alligator too. Then there was a disturbance; several gates tore open all around the island. Gave me heart palpitations until I remembered there were no Auphe here and it could only be the slightly less formidable bae.

Jacob Grimm gated out of the house. I leaned my shoulder to the window, sniper crosshairs showing me a wave of mid-air fire and several fireballs running away and traveling to try and put it out; apparently no one taught bae how to stop, drop, and roll. I focused the sight on Cassie. Robin would help Cal, but this moment was the perfect opportunity for Grimm to shoot my lover up with paralytic and kidnap her. And they were taking the opportunity.

It was the long haired Grimm that had her on the gravel, belly up, and struggling. Jacob Grimm, still smoldering a little with half his head burned black, strolled over, flipping another epi-pen style vial along his fingers.

Cassie twisted, wrapped her leg around Billy Grimm's neck – yeah, _over_ her own head – and launched him, face first, into the ground. Jacob Grimm rushed forward, pulling back his arm to plant the syringe into her side. She gated –finally.

Jacob Grimm fell to one knee and I wished I could see his expression right then. He glanced back at Cal and I followed with the sniper sight. Cassie was under his arm, clutched to his chest; I was wrong she hadn't gated Cal had gated her. I smiled. Even with malfunctioning gates he saved her. Either that or he was getting into a very bad habit of stealing other people's gates.

The syringe was broken. Jacob Grimm pulled another out of his pocket. Where the hell was he…wait a minute.

I gated downstairs to the room Grimm had rolled out of his burning man status. Lo and behold there was a black nylon duffle, embossed with the Vigil's white moon, sitting on the floor, filled with ammo, Tazers, and those plastic covered tranquillizers for Cas. I traveled it and myself back upstairs. The bae were frantically gating everywhere; one more wouldn't give me away. I didn't have much time though. The Grimms would get the upper hand unless Cassie let her gates go and even then all they would have to do would be to get that drug into her.

I broke open one of the vials with my knife and doused the box of .308 rounds with it. Two can play at this game, asshole. I chambered the laced round, focused the sight on Jacob Grimm and let loose the bullet. I'd aimed low on his back, below the rib cage where I knew his heart lied. It was sheer luck that when he lurched back to avoid Cal's flamethrower I still tagged him in the shoulder blade. He stumbled. I shifted to find the other one, but couldn't sight him. I took out three bae, while I was at it but didn't bother reloading.

I left the sniper, cracked open another vial, and poured it down the clip for me Eagle. Hopefully it didn't jam anything up in my baby. I slammed the clip in, hoisted the bag on my shoulder, and traveled right in front of Jacob Grimm. I smiled, but considering he was on the flat of his back trying to squirm away the effects of the drug I doubted he realized I wasn't the Cal who flambéed his skull.

I upturned the duffle onto his chest and systematically stomped down on plastic-coated syringes. Grimm got his hand around one of the Tasers, but it was his cyborg hand and it couldn't grip enough to lift and pull the trigger. I kicked it out of his hand, just in case.

Behind me the commotion was settling. The bae became as extinct as the Auphe in this world. The flamethrower had avoided most of the tinderbox houses, but some leafy foliage was getting extra crispy. A fireboat might be over soon. Maybe the 343.

"Well, I've been waiting to do this for a long time," I mused, aimed the Eagle, and took out his remaining testicle, probably his dick too considering the caliber.

Jacob Grimm's mouth opened wide in a scream, he rolled over clutching his groin now gushing blood; with that kind of pain even he couldn't gate. The other one could though and gate he did, right on top of me. We rolled in the dirt, me pistol-whipping and punching his face and kidneys, him clawing at my chest to get my heart.

I saw a bae looping towards us like a tongue-lolling puppy excited to joining in on a wrestling match. A projected gate came out of nowhere, slicing the bae in half and shearing off a little of Billy Grimm's shoulder. He ducked quickly enough to keep his head, but the shock afterward allowed me to kick him off.

Cal slammed him across the face with the much heavier flamethrower barrel. He stumbled and gaped. If seeing Cal and I wasn't enough to make him piss himself, seeing Cassie thoroughly pissed and wrapping three projected tears around herself in a pattern that, like Josh had described, looked like a living fluctuating molecule with electrons visible in orbit.

Billy Grimm stepped back. He was running and I really wanted to end this for both of us. I got a paralytic-coated bullet in him, saw it pierce his arm as he dodged, but he was already through the gate; too quick for Cas or me to close it on him.

There were several moments when everyone stood with guard up, then Cassie dropped her gates and strolled over to me. Jacob Grimm had collected himself enough to register the shit he was in and attempted a gate of his own. I snapped it shut before it was more than the size of pea. Cassie heeled him across his jaw, dropping him on his back. She circled around, stepped down on his bloody groin.

Grimm hissed in pain, sounding like a deflating hot air balloon spitting fire. Cassie just ground her heel down. "I'd give you a speech or some more witty banter about how you weren't hugged enough as a child, but fuck it. Caliban, gun."

I was surprised she asked, but I provided without hesitation. So did Cal. Two identical black matte Desert Eagles were presented to her and she gamely took them both. "Fitting," she said and aimed at his head and where his Auphe heart was, while I made sure to close every desperate gate his drugged mind tried to conjure up. Both guns went off, one a hair behind the other. Cassie's arms jolted back a little more than mind did, but she controlled it.

Grimm's brains joined the bird shut on the cobblestone and his body stilled. Cassie took in a deep cleansing breath, let it out, then handled the guns back to us.

"Burn him," she commanded and stepped back from the corpse.

Cal holstered his gun. As he lifted the flamethrower back up, he glanced over at me. "You want a keepsake?"

"I've got plenty of reminders, thanks. Light him up." I caught Cassie's waist before she got too far from me and turned her face to me as Cal went about incinerating Jacob Grim in much the way we had Sawney years ago, minus the acid. Apparently, the flamethrower only came out from under the bed for funeral pyres.

Goodfellow stood far back with an expensive shirt sleeve over his mouth and nose to keep the stench of burn hair and meat at bay. Sadly, it just made me want some Hawaiian BBQ, but I wasn't going to reflect on that. The puck was cut up from bae claws, his clothes ruined, but looked no worse for the wearer.

We bested Grimm, our world would be Grimm-less when we got back. Cassie was in my arms, out of the Vigil for good and safe from the sickest bastard I'd ever personally known, which was saying a lot.

Cassie offered me a smile, it didn't take long for it to become genuine. She wrapped her arms around my shoulders loosely and pushed up on her toes to kiss me. It wasn't a simple kiss either. No, amid the wreckage of a fifty year abandoned town, surrounded by pieces of a pale white, scaly, hybrid monster race, blood washing the gravel streets, and a bonfire made of our enemy's bones, we kissed like we survived the end of the world.

Roll credits please. Our work here was done. It was time to go home and break the bed.

Internal Use Only


	19. Chapter 19 - Caliban

**CHAPTER NINTEEN**

**CALIBAN**

I watched myself struggle through stressful nightmare of memories past the next day. After taking out the Grimm of my world with the flamethrower, we piled on the bae bodies and figured the Vigil of this world could handle the rest. It wasn't like an out of control fire would destroy anything more than history on the uninhabited island.

We returned to Robin's for a well deserved siesta, but in the morning hours I was awakened by Cal's pacing in the living room. Then he started beating at the couch pillows. Cassie and I roused from our contented slumber to go see what the matter was, all the while my heart seized for fear of Nik's condition.

Robin had left under my instruction to get the late Nero's healing salve from Dodger then he said he would stay at Ishiah's apartment, giving up his bed so we didn't have to move or gate Niko. But that also left us alone to tend to a medical situation none of us were familiar with. At least not from this side of things.

Cal spiked a pillow to the floor and punted it across the apartment.

"Cal, what's wrong?" Cassie asked, rushing to his side and pulling his arms down as he punched the air. "Is Niko alright?"

"There's no change. He's not waking up," Cal growled. He shook his head then raked his hand through his loose hair.

I remembered this. The times he was hurt before. When a psycho super human tossed the car he was stuck in just a few years ago. When Hob got him and carved him up like a Thanksgiving turkey. That fear that I would lose the one constant in my life was the same as always. The same as when I was still in the single digits and he got deathly sick while our mother was away (not that she would have helped at all). I had to blackmail a neighbor to get him drugs; not problem, not above that. Problem was that we already had the drugs this time.

Niko was appropriately stitched up and filled to the gills with paien brand antibiotics, pain killers, and iron supplements on top of the blood bags and saline we'd pumped into him. He needed time to heal, but Cal didn't want to hear it. Hell, I didn't want to hear it.

Cassie forced Cal to sit on the couch. After seeing her ability to manipulate multiple gates, he'd been giving her a little more respect and a little less Caliban attitude. Knowing she could cut you into diamonds with a thought could do that to a guy.

"Nik will be okay. He needs to rest."

"He's rested enough. He needed to open his damn eyes at least!"

"How long were you out after Cerberus? Sawney? Which time was it that he to keep cleaning your sheets because you were out for days. He's getting some payback and you should baby him for it. He deserves it."

Cal scowled and stared at his hands in his lap. Cassie brushed her hand over his brow, tucking black hair behind his ear. "We could go get some diapers if you want to baby him literally. Embarrass the hell out of him when he wakes up and never let him live it down."

That got a smile. He stared at her, then those devious eyes roamed to me. "No, you cannot borrow her," because I knew that smitten look, "But I'm totally fine with swaddling Nik."

"You will do no such thing," Promise chided from the doorway to Robin's bedroom; another reason the puck left. He and Promise hadn't reached the same level of tolerance in this world as they had in ours. The two of them never got along in either world, but in ours they could associate in small intervals until one, usually Promise, grew tired of the other. Here they were still in evasion mode.

"He's awake by the way," Promise added and stepped aside to let Cal rush in. Cas and I were with him only a step or two behind. "It's a little disheartening when he asks for you the moment he opens his eyes."

She said it to me, but I knew she meant Cal. It would be the same in my world though; Cassie knew it too and patted Promise's crossed arms emphatically. "Ain't it though?"

"Hey you two married into this, you should've known," I commented.

Cassie giggled and cuddled against my arm. "Aww, you consider us married?"

"Don't start," I countered and turned my attention to Niko and his little brother knelt at his bedside like a puppy offering slippers.

"You did what?" Niko's voice was much stronger than one would imagine from a man unconscious and laid up for over twenty four hours. He attempted to sit up, but only made it to half propped on his elbows. "That was you, wasn't it? Flying off the handle half-kilter and dragged him with you."

I blinked at the accusation. Apparently, Cal just told him we took on the Grimm Brothers and tanked one of them, and Nik was blaming me for reckless behavior that the other me had a plenty too. "Hey, the bastards nearly killed you. He wasn't going to need me to go hunting. If anything having both of us there sealed Jacob Grimm's fate without any injury on our part." That actually settled into my brain in that moment. We didn't incur any injuries during the finale. Other than scratches and slices from bae claws, no one got bit and the Grimms didn't get to land any punches. Go us. "We actually make a pretty good team."

"Yeah, well next time you come calling bring your brother."

I laughed and shook his blanket-covered foot. "Glad to see you're feeling better, Cyrano."

Niko's mouth twitched in his form of a smile, but it quickly formed a grimace when he laid back down. He was trying to put on a brave front for Cal, for me too probably, but his injuries were too substantially to erase the pain from his eyes completely. He refocused on his own brother and ruffled his loose hair. "Well, how did it go and how many buildings did you destroy?"

"Depends on how quickly the fireboats can get to North Brother Island."

Niko's eyebrows lifted. "Interesting choice, which Grimm decided that?"

"Ours more likely," I replied. "He hung out there for a bit while he iced his balls…his one ball left actually."

Nik ignored my distraction and the evil twist to my tone as I relished the memory of the night Cassie nearly gelded Grimm in our world. "No casualties or witnesses then?"

"Just Jacob Grimm and a bunch of bae dead," Cal told him. "The Grimm of our world ran off pissing himself when he saw me and Caliban." He glanced behind him at Cassie. "And Queen of the Damned Gates whipping them around like ribbons on a stick. He ran, ran away as fast as he could."

"Sorry we couldn't take care of that for you," Cassie said with a half cringe. It was a shame. I would have been delighted to neuter Billy Grimm too, if given the chance. Especially after what he did to Niko.

"There's always hope that he traveled into a nest of hungry revenants and they tore his paralyzed ass up, because my drug-laced bullet hit him before he gated. He's knocked out somewhere."

Niko shifted into a more proper sitting position and tried to take the syringe for the saline drip out of his arm. Cal slapped his hand aside. Big brother gave him a weary look. "Cal, this is to keep my hydrated, which I can now do myself since I'm conscious."

Cal retreated and let Niko pull out the needle, but not get up from the bed. "You still need rest."

"I need to use the restroom and not develop bed sores. I'm okay," and when Cal insistently pushed back on Niko's shoulders, he grabbed little brother up by the sides of his head and repeated himself with steady calm. "I am okay."

With Cal's help, he eased off the plush bed. I must have been wearing a similar lost-puppy look, because Niko made a small clicking sound in the back of his throat, which happened when he held in a rare laugh. He flicked me on the ear, stretching to do so. "I am okay."

I offered a meek smirk and stepped back to let them pass. Niko was pretty steady for a guy who almost died from blood loss yesterday, but Cal still hovered close without subtly as they made their way to the bathroom. Had it been a minor injury or a moderate handicap that hadn't threatened Niko's life Cal would have been teasing him and push him to see if he could keep balance. I knew this because that's what I'd be doing. Vulnerability wasn't a common thing with Niko, usually it was me laid up. And like the very few times it'd happened before I hated seeing him like this.

His neck was bandaged and clean save for a little discharge which was normal for human healing. That would change if Robin found what I'd sent him to get. With Nero's salve there wouldn't even be a scar, so long as they didn't leave it fester for weeks.

Promise slipped by us, giving cautious birth. She had been just as shocked as the others when hearing how and why there were two Caliban's running around, but she took to it like Goodfellow had. She, like, the puck seemed to know that the worlds we lived in were more than they seemed. She knew of the gods and angels and demons that none of them ever spoke of to the brothers Leandros. But, unlike, Goodfellow, she hadn't wanted to discuss it.

She accepted who I was and where I was from, but didn't seem particularly trusting of me even if I was Cal. I wasn't from her world and I was from a world that she showed a little trepidation for. Maybe the god that created my world was one connected to vampires or maybe, just like the Auphe, he was a paien better left unnamed for fear he would appear.

Promise drifted into the bedroom with the water Niko had indirectly requested, barely acknowledging us still in the doorway. She changed the sheets, damp from fevered healing and nightmares just like mine usually were after injury, and set out clean bandages in preparation to change Niko's. Without hesitation she played nurse maid, and was probably the most elegant one I'd ever seen. Her mouth was taunt in a line though. Eyes fixed on her task.

Maybe it wasn't that she feared our world, but what we might know in it. She had her own secrets, some we had uncovered as Nik and I kept her in our lives, but being over six hundred years old she had to have more. Promise was cautious and private though; I doubted I knew anymore about her than Cal did.

Cassie wrapped her arms around my waist as we stood, snuggled her cheek to my shoulder. I kissed the top of her head and decided the rest of their secrets and the rest of ours would be better left unspoken.

The rest of the day was a lazy one we were mostly stuck in the apartment only really venturing out for food; Cal and myself separately. The clock was ticking down on my wrist, but we still had hours to go before Cassie and I had to say our goodbyes and venture out to Ward's Island.

Niko was doing well – and too much – by evening. Discussions were had quietly in the kitchen regarding the other Grimm, their Grimm. I wasn't invited into that conversation, but considering we had no clue where he was I doubted I could help much before we left. Cassie and I had even checked the other islands Mickey had mentioned and tried to shake down a few other contacts, but no Grimm shaped apples fell from the tree. A few more hours wasn't going to give any promising results.

Cassie was holed away in the guest room with Robin. The puck had returned successful in his mission to procure the salve and after a few tentative sniffs Cal dipped his fingers in and slapped it on Niko's neck without pause. Hopefully, they would use it on other injuries as well.

Robin tried to break out the bubbly to celebrate the end of one Grimm, but no one seemed to be in a cheerful mood, so he retired in private with Cassie to spend as much time with her as he could before she disappeared from his life again. I left them to their own devices. I trusted Cassie wholly and trusted Goodfellow enough that he wouldn't take up the fact that he hadn't had Cassie on her back in my world as a challenge.

That left me on the couch, reclined and faking relaxed. Inside I was a mess of all sorts of things. Anxious to get home and back to my brother and sons, scared that something would go wrong and we would end up in the Land of the Lost, guilty for leaving before we took out Grimm, guiltier for dangling Cassie in their lives then snatching her away again.

I checked my watched as it counted down to the portal opening. Seven hours. Now I knew how cubicle paper pushers felt. The clock ticked down a minute and I sighed.

There was a mild argument brewing between Cal and Niko in the kitchen, which Cal would lose. He was pissed that they weren't acting ballsy enough or he was pissed that an injured Niko was acting too ballsy. I couldn't tell, but I knew either way he would lose. Promise was acting referee as she clean the bae scratched on Cal's arms. Most of the magic salve had been swathed over Niko's neck, too much of it, but I didn't blame Cal for the over-application.

Their banter made it so no one noticed Cassie and Goodfellow emerge from the guestroom or their conspiring whispers before they entered the living area. No one noticed the puck rest his hands on Cassie's shoulders and assure her. "It's done. Don't worry, it will be fine."

He kissed her on the lips, a short peck that I could forgive, then he clasped his hands and moseyed off to torture the rest of his company. "Cal, Cal, honestly. Give your brother a bit of time before you revert to your rude reckless ignorant self. He made you pancakes and changed your diapers when you were hurt, don't you believe he deserves the same?"

I ignored Goodfellow and fixed my questioning gaze on Cassie. She and the puck were conducting a business plan not making assurances that this crew would be fine once we were gone. 'It's done' had nothing to do with Grimm, even my reckless ignorant self could figure that out.

"I hate your plan," she whispered. Her eyes were red-rimmed as she settled onto the couch beside me. She pulled her legs up and curled into my side. "But it's necessary."

I cupped her chin and offered a kiss. "It's necessary."

A cold beer appeared in front of me, held over my head by the puck behind the couch. I took the offered beverage and twisted off the top as Cassie accepted a bottle as well. The three of us clicked the glass together with a kind of determined remorse. All agreeing that we couldn't leave the brothers as we were, no matter how much it hurt to deceive them.

"That's strange," Niko commented from the kitchen. I leaned back to watch the group, Cassie still resting her head to my shoulder. Niko lifted his phone from his ear and set it to speaker on the kitchen island. "We got a message on the job line, but…it's odd."

"When are they not?" Cal grumbled, but fell silent to listen. The voicemail box was one we used for our out-of-sorts private detective agency. We helped the paien find, do, or kill things they couldn't or didn't want to find, do, or kill themselves. Paid more than the rent on a good job, but those were the ones that usually almost killed me. The phone was stuck in a subway locker, always turned off, so we just accessed the messages on our burners. Needless to say, the messages were always of the 'strange' variety.

The voice that came over the line was a little kid's, probably eight or nine judging by the enunciation. She didn't sounds distraught or scared, just recited the words like a poem in a cute little cadence with lots of breaths between. "Okay," she caroled excitedly, announcing the start. "To the man not a monster. Travel to the place where the father was unmade, the metal giant sl…sla-in, and the white crocodile exiled with lead and fear. Your darkness I a-ack…ack-now-ledge as mine."

There was a little shuffling and the girl giggled. A raspy woman's voice thanked someone off the receiver and the message ended.

Those in the kitchen started discussing the connotations, while Cassie and I shared a long look. We both knew who that was from, though I was surprised Niko would get a child to relay the message. He probably paid a woman in need for the innocent service. Probably searched through the alleys to find one with a kid and made their day with a few Benjamins. He was like that; the honorable and valiant Highlander of New York City.

This world's crew could figure most of it out themselves –Robin had joined them at the island to add in his two cents as none of them seemed to realize it wasn't a mayday from their world. _My_ brother didn't realize he was catering to their knowledge (caution to it being their lack of knowledge from five years back). He didn't know that they'd already fought Grimm, Janus, and Kalakos at Fort Tilden, or he was testing to see if they had.

The message was for Caliban, they knew, but they hadn't registered which one yet. Fort Tilden was the location, but the end was tripping them up and the use of the little girl confused. Confused me too, but it was probably more convenience of immediate need that a hidden message, unless it was a reminder of what I had left behind in my world. My kids. My miracles.

I turned off the television and patted Cassie's knee. She knew it was time for us to go. I could tell she was caught between sadness and excitement. Like a kid elated to go home after camp was over to be with family missed, but depressed by having to leave loved friends.

Since the caller had made no other demands or request they were hesitant. They didn't want to rush off to an ambush set up by Grimm or some other enemy we'd accumulated down the line. Not that I blamed them.

"But why used a line from the Tempest?" Niko sighed. "In context it was an insult to the character of Caliban, a begrudging admission to taking responsibility. Out of context it sounds almost romantic or loving."

"Really?" I chuckled as I came up to the counter and leaned both elbows to the granite with my beer still in hand. "Because I would have preferred you come to that conclusion instead of claiming my new girlfriend evil and I should never see her again."

"He did what now?" Cassie chimed in. She wrapped her arms around my waist from the side and squeezed. "Lotta good that warning did."

I smirked and kissed the top of her head. It didn't do any good at all. I kept dreaming of her, wanting her so desperately, and eventually I came crawling to Goodfellow for answers and a ticket into his apartment where she was stowed away.

"Cassie spoke that line to you?" Niko asked.

"Claiming you, then," Robin chuckled and nicked Cassie under her chin. "There was no parting you to begin with, was there? Because I doubted anyone but me thought pairing two half Auphe together was a good idea."

"But Cassie's here," my brother went on, ignoring Robin and keeping concentration on the matter at hand.

"And you were the one to take offense to the quote," I offered. "You said you wanted my brother to come along for the ride. Apparently he took you up on that and is waiting at Fort Tilden. Who's up for a road trip?"


	20. Chapter 20 - Caliban

**CHAPTER TWENTY**

**CALIBAN**

It wasn't much of a road trip, but Goodfellow still called up a car service to bring an SUV from his lot. He even got one with heavily tinted windows so Promise could tag along. By the time we got through traffic to the west side of Manhattan, the vampire could exit the vehicle without worrying about a lick of sun.

Night had fallen and the Fort was locked to tourists. That didn't mean the Niko of my world wasn't already there, it just meant we had to wait for the security watch to mosey on through before leaving to swing by the next closed up tourist trap. It didn't take long, which was good because the watch on my wrist was ticking down to the fifth hour.

This world's Niko started to pull out some bolt cutters from the back of the SUV to take on the chains over the front gate, but Cassie grabbed the cutters and tossed it back into the trunk. "Are you serious with that?" she laughed through a whisper. With a short swipe of her talons the lock fell into pieces with some chain as confetti. Nik and I caught the sides of the chain before it fell down and rattled the high fence.

She rolled her eyes at my brother's glare and pushed the gate open. It whined dully, but that wouldn't even be enough sound to alert the guard should they have still been around. We filed in silently and took to the shadows to the left. Niko and Cal were still paranoid that this was some sort of trap, but with the dead Grimm being our Grimm there was no way anyone but family could lure with those words. Even our Grimm couldn't.

The fort still hadn't recovered from out battle with Janus and Grimm in this world. Judging by the toppled tower and the red paint still flaking around the former foundation it looked to have gone down in much the same manner. The Vigil probably left the paint because they knew no one could read Auphe –or fake Auphe as it were. The city had enclosed the rubble in chain link and tarps, plastering on caution tape to keep civilians our. Construction vehicles were spotted around the area, so they seemed to be making some effort.

We walked around the perimeter in silence, until Cassie broke off from the group. She tore across the open expanse in front of the collapsed fort and crashed into a dark figure so far away he was almost a speck on the horizon where the waves crested softly and foully against the beach.

Cal gave me an odd look, maybe surprised I hadn't stopped her mad dash or maybe confused by the affection she'd just shown his other world brother. Nik loved his big sis though, despite his plea for me to stay put in our world. I would always trump Cas and she would never try to change that. I knew if she was ever told that Niko had been prepared to leave her in the other world to spare me the possibility of becoming molecular fairy dust, she would never hold it against him.

Now though, he held her against him. Embraced her tightly with the rising moon glinting off the blond highlights in their hair.

"She greet everyone like that?"

I chuckled and waved for our pilgrimage to follow down toward the beach –only a beach by definition. The grass was lush under our feet and made all of us silent, even Cal and I. _My_ brother approached with an arm around my girl, though he eyed the others with apprehension. I could hear Cassie explaining the situation to him softly, so by the time we met up he didn't look ready to strangle me and slap me upside the head for going right to 'past me'.

"How was the trip?" I asked. I reached out and gave his arm a squeeze; our version of a hug. Considering how rough the ride was for Cassie and me, I could only imagine the repercussions for a human.

"Came through on the lawn outside the facility site." 'Facility site' because the Manhattan chapter hadn't created their top secret labs in this world beneath Ward's Island. "Lost six hours and woke up in the hospital. Someone on Ward's must have called it in."

"No trouble getting out?"

Niko shook his head. "How are you?" he glanced at the others assessing their postures, marveling at the likenesses. "You're injured…"

He was talking to other Cal. I had a few scrapes and bumps, but Cal was still standing with favor to his ribs. "I'm fine. Let _my_ brother handle worrying about me. You have your hands full with Bonnie and Clyde over there."

"An alternate dimension," Niko murmured absently and shook his head again. "Amazing, but I suppose we're lucky. Having Grimm in the past…I doubt our future would have lasted."

"Why are you here? Is something wrong with the gate?" I prodded a little more than concerned he would chance the leap as well, even for me.

Niko lifted his arm as Cassie moved from him to me, slipping her arms under my jacket to snuggle. Still casting inquisitive sidelong looks at the others, who were likely doing the same to him, Niko replied with slow deliberation. "Someone got impatient and I was getting worried. They were able to confirm that you made it through with your physical integrity intact, but knew nothing of the world you entered. We are blind to what's going on here. I doubt you would have waited as long."

"Who got impatient?" Cal needled. I shot him a sharp glare and made to kick his shin.

"Stop asking those questions. You don't want the answer, you dick."

I glanced back at the others. Cal's Niko didn't seem to know what to make of seeing himself standing in front of him without a mirror. Since I'd been there myself, I understood. I patted him on the shoulder to empathize. "If the gate's open, we should go."

Robin lurched forward in a motion that almost seemed an attack. I tensed, but he only grabbed for Cassie, pulling her into a hug. He was near tears at this point, I could hear it in his voice when he told her he'd miss her and he loved her. I was cruel that he had to remember, cruel that he would always remember, but there was no other way.

Turning away from the emotional goodbye, I nodded to Cal, which he returned. "Sorry, we couldn't take 'em both out."

"Our Grimm, our problem, but thanks for trying."

I nodded again, waiting for Cassie to pry herself from the puck's arms. "If there's anything left in that tin Robin gave you, you might want to make a smoothie or something. Get your gates back in line."

"Used it all." Of course he did. His brother nearly died, he didn't even want a scar to remind him. Niko's neck was smooth and nearly unmarred. The slash marks were barely discernable on his olive skin, unnoticed unless one was searching.

"Sorry for the extra nightmares too," I added.

Cal gave me a smirk, gray eyes flickering over to Castiella. "Got some nice dreams out of it too."

Cassie shifted from Robin, to take up both of Cal's hands. "You have a family, Cal. Don't forget that and don't compare. Your bond with this family was strong long before I ever showed up." She pressed onto her toes and kissed him. It lingered, but remained close-mouthed for my benefit. "You are a survivor, Cal Leandros, but never a monster."

"That's your goodbye?" he commented. With a defiant look in my direction, he grabbed Cas up by the nape and proceeded to give her a much more intrusive kiss. I allowed it for all of the five seconds I counted in my head, then slipped an arm around Cassie's waist and tugged her away from the other me. I didn't say a word, but my glower and his shitty smirk were enough communication between us.

Nik, my Nik, cleared his throat to quell the jealousy roiling between his identical brothers. "We should go. We have guards posted to keep someone from wandering through the portal, but six hours is long enough for the gate to be open."

Slick, big bro. Somehow he knew we hadn't spoken of the kids and he knew not to mention Dante's gate-wielding in front of our doppelgangers. He brought up a good point though. Poor Dante had been holding this gate for hours, probably fearing for our lives as we didn't reemerge.

I gave the group a wave and opened a gate behind us to Ward's Island. Best not to give Cassie any more time to drag this out. It was time for the Band-aid method.

"Miss me only a little," my girlfriend called out as I pulled her through, eager to finally get home.

The shift wasn't as awful as before, though it did disorient enough to have me pass out. Someone caught me before I nose dove into the metal grate floor. Blacked out for a few hours just like last time, but when I woke it wasn't in another world with another me gazing down in perplexity. This time I woke with my face half buried into my pillow, on my bed, in a luxurious penthouse that I would have no hope ever paying for if my brother hadn't knocked up a rich vampire.

I rolled over and my shoulder knocked into a small crooked knee. Peering through loose black hair, I saw Cassie smiling down at me. She was glowing. Not literally, just in that way people exuded bliss and excitement. It looked good on her.

I scooted up into a sitting position next to her, resting my back to the wall. Connor was in her arms nursing a bottle with his eyes closed. They never let Cassie nurse him naturally, several reasons for that I was sure. Namely consistency –they took him away from her whenever they pleased and he needed to be fed more than once a week or month. They also didn't want to encourage that bonding between them. The milk she might have produced was dried or drying up, but she didn't seem to mind that she had to use plastic and formula instead. He was safe, home, and in her arms. That was plenty good enough.

"How'd you wake up before me?"

Cassie grinned wider. "Stubborn will."

I chuckled and kissed her, before pushing down the fuzzy duck blanket wrapped around my baby boy and dropping a kiss to his soft little Mohawk of white blond hair. "What a wild ride."

Cassie hummed in agreement, then after a significant pause sighed in the guilty manner of one about to reveal a secret. "I'm sorry for my behavior these passed few days. Seeing you after so long I just…"

I nuzzled into her neck and kissed a trail down to her collarbone. "We'll make up for lost time, don't worry."

"But I did worry," she argued and turned to face me. Her mahogany eyes bore into me. "Cali, I'm sorry. I was scared that I wasn't going to get back. I doubted you and…I almost slept with him."

I lifted my eyebrows. "Which 'him'?"

She tilted her head in confusion. "You…"

The fire in my chest quickly diminished to ciders. If him had been Goodfellow we were going to have some words. "Cas, I'm somewhat surprised you didn't. I saw the way he looked at you. That was more than just lust. I mean, I slept with a wendigo when you were gone."

"That was eight months not eight days and you thought I was dead."

"Eight days in another world with no assurance that you could get home. Besides it's been over five months since we've seen each other." I rested my head to her shoulder and brushed a finger over Connor's head. "I'm not going to say I wouldn't be pissed and oddly jealous, but he was me. He really was me. So I would have forgiven you." I kissed the cap of her shoulder. "Plus I get you for the rest of my life. Seems selfish of me to deny him a kiss or two."

Cassie hummed again, her contented mood returning. "I love you, Cali."

"Obviously," I teased and cupped her cheek to kiss her more deeply. The door eased open as we parted and round gray eyes peered in, followed by a short cut of dark chocolate hair and a pale inquisitive face. I motioned Dante in and he quickly proceeded into the room, then he crawled onto the bed. I chuckled as he lied down on in stomach to wedge between us. His chin propped to his mother's knee and his hand twisting back to take mine and squeeze. Sometimes he really acted like a little kid. Mom and dad were gone for a long time and he didn't want to be one second apart from us. It was fine for now, but he wasn't sleeping in the bed with us when he had nightmares.

"Is Niko alright?" I asked. Dante nodded, watching Cassie burp his little brother intently.

"He woke briefly, but decided not to stay awake. Promise is with him."

Big brother must have really been down trodden to sleep in. I shifted a pillow behind my back and settled in myself. The king-sized bed was crowded, but I somehow didn't mind. I listened to Cassie and Dante chat softly, my eldest son curious about our adventure. It was a pleasant sensation; feeling their warmth and heartbeats, smelling the botanical mix of earthen flowers and night shadows. I smiled as I closed my eyes.

"Dad?"

I tapped my thumb to his hand still close enough to touch mine even if he wasn't holding it anymore. "Yeah?"

"I need to tell you something, because it seemed important for you to know before."

I peeled one eye open and looked down at Dante's serious expression. "What?"

"I slept with Riordyn."

My eyes squeezed shut and I banged my head a few times on the wall behind me. Cassie just giggled beside me and a second later Connor's musical trill followed.


	21. Epilogue - Cal

EPILOGUE

ƆȺȽ

Fridays were praised by the working stiff, but for me it heralded the chaos of weekend shifts at a peri bar. As soon as the sun set they came out from sewers and penthouses with a view. Monsters of the nightmares that kept those working stiffs' children awake at night. And I was serving them drinks.

It was just another night. One fight already broken up with a peri swinging a baseball bat into the thick skull of a werewolf that had one too many and two revenants shoved out the door for more reason than their veritable stink turning the stomachs of other patrons. Just another night at the Ninth Circle. Just another night that felt like it should have been more.

It was a feeling niggling at my frontal lobes like a teething kissi and had been doing so for more than a few days. Why wasn't it just another night? I hadn't the faintest and I had accepted that I never would.

Nothing had changed since Pyriel/Jack bit the big one to float off into a Neverland that was obviously not going to be Heaven this time. Nothing different except I woke up with my ribs aching and more mangled than they'd been before. There were new scrapes and bruises and somehow I'd lost about five days. Niko too.

Goodfellow had told us we drank well into the morning hours in celebration of defeating our first angel. I remembered that, Nik remembered that, but the rest…

The more Goodfellow told us about our supposed week-long bender the more I didn't want to know.

I'd let loose like that before. Sang with the puck, plastered and not remembering who Caliban Leandros was. Forcing Nik to get tatted up so we'd truly be brothers in arms. I was a much better person drunk and amnesiac, but apparently –by Robin's account– I was a bit more destructive when I was drunk Cal.

Fought with some Kin, naked with a beer in one hand and my gun in the other, he'd said. Got my ass busted up, but won. Threatened to cut Niko's braid off, got my ass busted up, didn't win. Drug home only to lose days. Goodfellow, trickster and master of weaving a tale, recounted our unrecalled adventure with gleeful details teetering on a fence between probable and an outright lie.

We knew it was a lie.

Nik and I both. We knew it was a lie, just as we knew that whatever happened during those five days, it was better left in the blank void of blackout. It was best believed lost in the celebratory bender. Because my ribs had been re-fractured, there was a sniper rifle by the name of Sally under my bed beside the flamethrower, and Niko…there was the faintest of scars tracing one side of his throat. Barely discernable, but I knew his scars better than my own and those hadn't been there before. Something terrible had happened. Something that had almost took our lives, or upended them, and my bets were on Heaven or Hell.

That was why we didn't change out our toothpaste. Didn't get new milk or toss the coffee grounds. Showed an unbelievable amount of trust that we didn't, especially for Niko.

Robin was dosing us so we'd forget. I was guessing Nepenthe venom, unless the puck found another means to erase memories, because Niko and I would never drink enough to blackout. Well, Niko never would. And roofies would only explain one day of memory loss, plus we would have woken up in some disturbing situation, likely missing clothes, with pictures to commemorate it if Robin had anything to do with it.

I'd been here before. I'd been here floating in that happy space of not knowing. I'd liked it there and wasn't sure if I wanted to come down. Hell, I only came back at all because Niko needed me. So I was fine with not knowing. An apparently Niko had enough of knowing, that not knowing was satisfying enough for now.

Maybe we didn't want to know the truth because Goodfellow wasn't lying and the things he was claiming, which were better never revisited, actually happened. Maybe it was because we didn't need to know. Maybe the puck was getting me back for telling him about the night Junior took me and made him swear not to tell Niko. Regardless…

Goodfellow would step in if we started forgetting out address or how to load a gun blindfolded. We trusted he would. And he would. He could have the secret of the forbidden week. He and Ishiah, because my boss obviously knew a thing or two as well.

He scowled at his lover when Robin sat down at the bar that night, he same way he had every other night since we the night of the great blackout. Ishiah was lying too and Mr. Formally Heaven's Bitch didn't like it. Goodfellow was a master at his trade though, and I didn't mean the sex part. He gave me his most charming and secretly satisfied smile as I set a bottle of whiskey from his personal stash behind the bar out for him.

"Good evening, Cal. How are we feeling today? Any secret urges to run as naked as nature intended through Central Park tonight? Or would you rather shove you gun down the throat of another snide werewolf? Considering the psychological interpretations of a man's firearm, like his car, being an extension of his manhood I believe a little self reflection should be considered. You seemed to enjoy sinking that barrel in deep, right to the trigger guard."

I slammed a rocks glass down next to the whiskey bottle. "The stories are pointless, Goodfellow. We know it didn't happen."

For a split second his broad smile vanished, his eyes flickered to Ishiah standing on my right, but then it was back on like a light switch flicked off by mistake, only revealing darkness for a moment before it became too frightening to behold. "Are you accusing me of lying? My dear friend, even I could not make up such a fantastic tale. The Unmaker of the World happy as a nymph, dancing and singing, and not while on a pile of corpses recently slaughter. It is a milestone, a miracle—"

"A lie," I supplied.

"You remember what happened?" Ishiah asked cautiously. Out of the corner of my eyes I could see his gold-barred wings shifting heavily on the peri's back. He was startled and worried. He hadn't wanted Robin to give us the blue pill and toss us unknowing back into the Matrix, but he didn't want us to remember what happened either. Another reason for us never to know. Another reason for me to toss a raised bet on it being about the angels I'd never knew about a month ago. As long as an alien baby didn't pop out of my chest, I didn't care.

"I don't remember jack," I growled, then snorted and corrected myself. "Well, I remember Jack, but I don't remember what happened those weeks after." I wiped a rag over the bar, then slapped it over my shoulder. "I don't want to either. You can keep your secrets."

Robin's shoulders rolled forward. He leaned one arm to the bar and poured himself a drink with the other. His smile was gone, but he was holding true to a passive expression. "You don't want to know?"

"No, I don't. I don't care. Neither does Niko, considering we're still using our toothpaste."

"Why would I use the same trick twice when I have so many up my sleeves," the puck cooed, all but admitting he was drugging us. I took his glass away from him, surprised he let me, and bent in close.

"The moment it endangers his life. The moment this secret threatens to give him another scar, because don't you for one second think I didn't notice, that is the moment you tell us. Understood?"

Robin nodded. The fact that he said nothing was more testament than a verbal agreement. I handed him back the whiskey and he set it on the bar without taking a drink. "I suppose that means you don't want to hear anymore stories about your drunken night. How we took a trip to Atlantic City and all piled on a bed together after you made a fort our of the suite's couch cushions, flinging casino chips across the room like a castle under siege."

"All I want to know is how he got that scar on his neck."

Goodfellow downed his two fingers of whiskey and poured himself some more. "It involved a call from a desperate angel, debilitating drugs, you finally looking in a mirror, striking out with a beautiful woman, and Grimm."

I straightened at that last bit. Grimm. That would explain why the faded scar on Nik's neck looked like a claw mark, like Grimm's fake Auphe glove. Whatever happened it had been epic and, so help me, I couldn't help but be hopeful. "Did I kill him?"

"Grimm? No, you didn't. Not for lack of trying. He will be on hiatus for an undetermined amount of time again."

I nodded slowly. It breached a whole new set of questions? Where was he now, why were the angels involved, had he attacked Niko –breaking out tenuous agreement– or had he been defending against my brother?

There were questions, but truth be told I didn't want the answers. Goodfellow would explain one day. One day when it would hurt less or save us from inevitable death. For now, I was satisfied. Niko survived, we were _both_ breathing, and if he noticed his new scar I wasn't going to be the one to tell him where it came from. I would certain show Grimm my _appreciation_ when I saw him next, though that had been the plan the moment he poofed out of Fort Tilden. That hadn't changed. I hadn't changed. Therefore the world hadn't changed and all was well.

Without looking, I cracked open two beers and slid them down the bar to some regulars. "That's good enough for me."

Internal Use Only


End file.
